


City of Chains

by unniebee



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, EXO (Band)
Genre: Addiction, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Crossover, Drug Use, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Threesome - M/M/M, side!Baekhyun/Yixing, side!Fenris/M!Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-20 06:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 138,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14254857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unniebee/pseuds/unniebee
Summary: “It was my fault that Apprentice Jongin escaped,” Sehun said.  “I was charged with the killing blow, should it come to that.  But when the order was given, I… hesitated.”  He’d never expected, not in a million years, that Jongin would fail his Harrowing - or that Jongin, of all people, would turn on the Templars that protected him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first crossover I’ve written in six years, and was a unique challenge for me. Special thanks to Ryan, Dawn and Cat for alpha-reading and being my sounding board, and to Line for beta-reading.
> 
>  **This fic contains major spoilers for all Dragon Age games.** This story takes place in 9:37 Dragon, during Act 3 of Dragon Age II. It follows my personal game canon, with a few exceptions. You should not need to know either Dragon Age or EXO in order to read this - I tried to include all explanation and description necessary. 
> 
> **Please read the warnings.** This takes place in a much more violent universe than my usual style and there is a lot more casual murder than I would normally portray. This is due to me attempting to adhere to the events, style and tone of DAII.
> 
> If you like ambient background music: [the Gallows](https://rpg.ambient-mixer.com/mage-s-tower), [Lowtown](https://fantasy.ambient-mixer.com/lowtown--kirkwall).

When Jongin came to his senses, he was already running.

He didn’t immediately remember why he was running, or when he had started running, or what he was running from. But he was running, and he knew he had to _keep_ running.

Not that he had anywhere to go.

Alarm bells were chiming, ringing like gongs from over his head. The entirety of the Gallows was coming out of their rooms, crowding the halls. Moving on instinct, Jongin turned down a bunk hallway, into a room he knew was empty, and ducked behind the door, pressing himself against the wall in the darkness. Lightning was crackling across his fingertips; he balled his hands into fists and hid his fists in the sleeves of his robes, hoping like hell that he didn’t accidentally set himself on fire.

Armor clanked, footsteps thudded, and gasps and murmurs sounded through the halls. Through the crack in the door, Jongin could see apprentices and enchanters alike pressing themselves to the walls and ducking into doorways, anything to get out of the way of the troop of heavily-armed Templars marching down the halls.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Jongin sucked in a breath - too noisy, be quiet! - and held it. First Enchanter Orsino strode into his narrow field of view - a thin elven man, too grey-haired and worn for his relative youth.

“First Enchanter, there is a fugitive loose in the tower.” Knight-Captain Cullen’s clear tenor rang out over the chatter, simple and plain. He didn’t need to emphasize his words; they carried enough weight on their own.

“What? Who?”

“Apprentice Jongin,” Cullen said, and Jongin closed his eyes, letting out his breath very slowly.

Of course. That must be why he was running.

Orsino looked gobsmacked, and Jongin winced instinctively at his teacher’s disappointment. “How could - no, you must be mistaken.”

“I’m afraid not,” Cullen said, still sounding so sympathetic, so reasonable. Guilt that Jongin barely understood welled in his chest. “He was taken for his Harrowing this morning, and he… he _turned_ on us.” His tone hardened. “Ser Maxine is dead.”

More gasps, more chattering, but Jongin didn’t hear it. He was reliving a roar in his ears, seeing the flash of steel coming for his throat, and feeling electricity buzz up his arms and explode from his fingertips.

He’d killed her. He remembered it now. Ser Maxine was dead on the floor of the Harrowing Chamber, her face a mass of burnt tissue and her body burst to pieces inside her very shiny armor.

Jongin clenched his fists more tightly, holding back the sympathetic memory of lightning.

He was a murderer.

Orsino looked horrified, and furious. “Why would you - Apprentice Jongin wasn’t ready for the Harrowing! We weren’t planning to send him for _months!_ Who gave this order?”

“I did.”

The crowd hushed, and Jongin froze.

“Knight-Commander Meredith,” Orsino said, with much less frigid civility than he usually managed in the Knight-Commander’s presence. “It has never been, and will never be, a Templar’s place to call for the Harrowing of an apprentice.”

Meredith, ice-eyed and tight-lipped, could just barely be seen through the crack by the door’s hinges. “Apprentice Jongin is twenty-five, it is _high_ time. If he was not ready now, he was never going to be.”

“That is _not_ your - ”

Meredith turned her back on Orsino right in the middle of his tirade. “Templars, pair up and comb the tower. I want you looking in every room, behind every cabinet, under every bed. Apprentice Jongin is now an apostate. Anyone who is caught harboring or aiding him will be brought to justice, am I clear?” She marched off, with Cullen at her side and a furious Orsino chasing after them.

Justice. Right. Jongin knew exactly what the Templar definition of _justice_ was.

But… He’d killed her. A woman, a Templar, someone he’d known for years. Someone he’d joked with in the kitchens and smiled at in the halls.

Maxine had only been doing her job. Following her orders.

_Her orders were to kill you._

Maybe he should turn himself in, after all. He was dangerous, and he… he still didn’t remember all of it. What else had he done?

_You did nothing wrong. She was ordered to kill you, and you defended yourself._

But - 

Jongin froze.

That… that was not his own voice in his head.

_Ah, yes. Nice to see you’ve caught up._

Maker. Oh, _Maker._

Jongin held his breath, waiting for his skin to rip open, for his hands to twist into claws. Waiting for the end. When it didn’t come, he exhaled, as slowly as he could manage.

He’d failed his Harrowing. He’d brought a demon back to the waking world, lurking inside his brain, and he was now an hourglass marking down the seconds before an explosion. A monster waiting to happen.

Templars were coming, Jongin knew the sound of their metal-clad footsteps anywhere. They were searching the rooms. He had to decide, _now_ \- did he turn himself in, or did he run?

 _You know what they’ll do to you,_ the voice in his head whispered. And yes, Jongin did know, because they’d done it to the former occupant of this room, and dozens of others just since Jongin had come to the Circle. _Tranquility is a fate worse than death._

Said the demon in his head.

 _I’m not a demon,_ the voice murmured. _Well… not unless you want me to be._

What?

_You don’t have time for this. They’re coming._

Oh Maker, they were. Two Templars - Ser Thrask and Ser Moira. They weren’t bad people, they weren’t like Meredith, neither of them had ever been cruel to Jongin.

He couldn’t do this. He _couldn’t_. He’d turn himself in, and suffer the consequences.

_You don’t have to kill them, you know. All you have to do is get past them._

Jongin couldn’t think of a single way to do that that wouldn’t result in one of them, or him, dead.

_Then let me handle it._

What? “No,” Jongin whispered, all but voiceless. “You want me to give in so you can take over.”

 _I won’t kill them,_ the demon in his head promised, smooth as silk, gentle. _You want to live, and I want you to live. Let’s work together, Jongin._

Why would a demon care if he lived or died?

 _Because you are meant for more than this,_ the demon replied, and then the door opened.

Jongin blacked out.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

“Come in.”

Taking a deep breath, Sehun entered the Knight-Captain’s office and gently closed the door behind him.

Cullen looked up from his work. He had that pinched look between his eyebrows, the look he got when he had spent too much time on paperwork and not enough out in the yard today. “Ser Sehun,” he said, sounding not even a little bit surprised. “Have a seat.”

Sehun did not sit. He remained at field-rest, boots planted and hands linked behind his back. “Knight-Captain, I have come to apologize,” he said, with as much confidence as he could muster. “And to make a request.”

Eyeing him, Cullen set down his quill. “Alright then. Start with the apology.”

“It was my fault that Apprentice Jongin escaped,” Sehun said. The words pained him, but he was not one to shrink away from the truth. “I was charged with the killing blow, should it come to that. Jongin was lost in the Fade for hours, far too long, I knew he wasn’t going to make it. But when the order was given, I… hesitated.” Jongin’s seemingly lifeless form, barely drawing breath, flashed through his mind. He’d never expected, not in a million years, that Jongin would fail his Harrowing - or that Jongin, of _all_ people, would turn on the Templars that protected him. “I did not fulfill my duty, and so Ser Maxine stepped up to do it for me. And she paid the price for my hesitation.”

Cullen sighed. “Who ordered the killing blow?” he asked.

Sehun didn’t see how that mattered, really. “It was Knight-Lieutenant Karras, ser.”

Folding his hands in front of him, Cullen tilted his head. “And of course Karras was aware that you and Apprentice Jongin were friends,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Stiffening, Sehun grit his teeth. “Our friendship should have been immaterial,” he said, a bit more sharply than he should by rights be addressing his Captain. “Jongin failed his Harrowing, and if I had not let my regard for him stay my hand, he would be in the arms of Andraste now. Instead, Maxine is dead and Jongin is now a fugitive apostate, running wild through the streets of Kirkwall. I could have stopped that.” Pulling his heels together, Sehun saluted. “Sir. I request permission to join the hunting party.”

A blond eyebrow raised. “Ser Karras is charged with recapturing him, as soon as the ritual to activate his phylactery can be completed,” Cullen said. “As I am sure you are aware.”

Flexing his hand behind his back, Sehun kept his voice measured. “Jongin and I were, as you noted, friends. I am hopeful that my presence might convince him to return willingly.”

“Hmm. I see.” Cullen returned to his paperwork. “Request denied, Ser Knight.”

Before he could stop himself, Sehun had taken a step forward. “Knight-Captain!”

“No. You are too close to this, Sehun, you’re taking it too personally. I can’t risk compromising the mission.” He shook his head, held up his hand to stop the protests tumbling from Sehun’s lips. “You could not bring yourself to kill him, even knowing he was almost certainly destroyed by his time in the Fade. You said that yourself. There will be other chances to redeem your honor; you’re sitting this one out.” Sehun opened his mouth again, and Cullen glared. “That’s an _order_ , ser.”

Sehun snapped his mouth shut, and resisted the urge to continue arguing.

Cullen searched his expression. “...I will go with Karras personally, at least today,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to see that he is returned here unharmed, I promise you.”

Trust Cullen to see his true worry. Sehun deflated slightly. “Thank you, Knight-Captain,” he said. “That is some reassurance.” Sehun bowed, and turned to take his leave.

“Sehun.” Sehun turned back, and found Cullen watching him. “My first assignment of… that nature. I was. It. I mean.” He sighed, shoulders slumping, and Sehun’s eyebrows raised at the uncharacteristic display. “Let’s just say, if I had been in your position, I wouldn’t have been able to do it either.” He met Sehun’s eyes, his own seeming tired. “Having emotional attachments is not a weakness, despite what some of the other officers might tell you. This isn’t your fault.”

Sehun stiffened, bile climbing his throat. “With all due respect, ser,” he snapped, “yes. It is.”

He turned, not waiting to be dismissed, and marched out.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The tip was good.

Tao braced himself on the ladder, locking his knees into the rungs, and held the trap door open just a fraction so he could see out into the passage. The sewer access tunnel that was his hiding place opened into a shadowy corner of one of Kirkwall’s many Undercity docks, a rather large caravel floating just past the opening in the cliffside, moored, with gangplank dropped. On the dock itself, a swordswoman wearing the sigil of the Coterie was deep in negotiations with an equally well-armed man wearing no identifying sigil. The man was backed by a half-dozen heavily armed and armored thugs; the woman was alone.

Stupidity? Or was she set up? Not that it particularly mattered, but Tao was always curious.

Between the sound of the waves crashing against the dock, the rush of the sewer below his feet, and the odd echo in the wet stone chamber, Tao couldn’t clearly make out what they were saying, but they were clearly arguing. Haggling. Tao took the opportunity to look for his next course of action. If his tip had been right about the location and the time, it was reasonable to assume it had been right about where the cargo was hidden, as well.

There was a staircase to his right, carved directly into the wall, shadowed. One of dozens that led from the Undercity up to the surface. Tao had to assume that the reason the Coterie woman had not already been killed for daring to try to drive the price up was because the man did not know where the cargo was held - but Tao did.

It was ballsy of her. More importantly, it bought Tao an advantage. He took a deep breath, and pulled the shadows around him like a cloak. 

A simple trick. Not true magic, but a whisper of it, a faint suggestion in the mind of anyone who looked that perhaps their attention was better aimed elsewhere. So cloaked, and with all of the careful silence his years in this city had taught him, Tao climbed out of the sewer access and gently closed the wooden trapdoor behind him.

No one had yet turned his way, but Tao didn’t trust his little half-spell so much as to become careless. He kept his steps silent as he skirted around the rough-hewn stone walls, keeping to the shadows as much as he could, until he could slip up the staircase.

There was a door at the top. Locked, of course. He didn’t know exactly to where it led, but his internal map of the city of Kirkwall told him it was somewhere within Lowtown. Not that that helped much.

Tao pulled out his lockpicks and got to work.

The voices from the bottom of the stairs were agitated now. They were arguing. Good.

With a click that sounded like thunder in his ears, the lock popped open.

Tao froze, half-expecting to hear the argument cease, to hear _what was that?_ It didn’t come. The combatants down the stairs were too wrapped up in their bartering. So Tao opened the door, looking for the valuable cargo he was here to liberate. He expected treasures, weapons, jewelry. Maybe incriminating documents or ancient artifacts.

He was not expecting _people_.

There were a dozen of them, curled up or laid out in three large cages. None moved and even fewer looked up as he opened the door; they had been drugged into submission.

Slaves. The unknown man and his thugs were slavers. Horrified, Tao froze where he stood for a long, terrible moment.

Valuable cargo. Valuable. Fucking. Cargo.

Shit, this wasn’t what he was here for, not at _all_. He was supposed to get in before the deal went down, make off with the goods, and leave the bargainers to argue over who betrayed who until someone died. He’d done it before, many times.

This was a first.

The room was obviously the basement of a Coterie safehouse, Tao had been inside enough of those to recognize the signs. The upper floors would likely be crawling with guards and fighters; it was spirit-favored that there were no guards in the holding room itself. The only real way out was back the way he came, where a half-dozen heavily armed guards awaited.

There was no way he was going to be able to get these people out. There was nothing he could do. He should just turn around and leave, before he got killed.

He turned, prepared to do just that. Then he heard a scream, sharply cut off. Female.

The bargaining was concluded, then. Time was up.

Tao jumped forward, quickly locking the door again behind himself in the hopes of buying a few moments to figure out what to do next. He could sequester himself in the shadowy corner of the room and hope he wasn’t discovered, or he could open the door on the far end and hope there weren’t guards directly on the other side. Neither option was good, but letting himself be caught, overwhelmed and chained up with the rest was _not_ an option. He’d die fighting, if it came to that. But Tao would really rather it didn’t, so he crossed the room to at least check on the far door.

Movement caught his eye as he passed the last cage in the line. A hand reached through the bars, pleading. Against his better judgement, Tao hesitated. The person’s curled form was swathed in a shapeless, torn, filthy garment, and their face was hidden by a curtain of sweaty, wild chocolate brown hair. He could not discern gender, nor age, nor even race.

“What is - ” A shudder. The voice was masculine, but croaky enough that Tao couldn’t tell anything else, and confused, muddled by the drugs. “Where - who are - ”

Purple lighting sparked across the outstretched fingers. Tao startled, eyes widening.

“You’re a mage,” he realized.

The figure raised his head. A young man, well out of boyhood but unlikely to be older than Tao himself. Human, by the shape of his eyes and the breadth of his shoulders. Dirt and blood stained his clothes, his olive skin, but now that he was uncurling, Tao could see that his shapeless garment was the remnants of a robe. Glassy, deep-brown eyes stared at him, and as Tao watched, they flashed glowing green.

A mage. Half-drugged, desperate, and considering the blood on his robes did not appear to be his own, probably dangerous.

“Help me,” the mage whispered. “Help - help _us_.”

Gods be all damned. Guilt pulled at Tao’s insides, doing bloody battle with his sense of self-preservation and his deep, deep fear of the slaver’s chains.

He couldn’t take on a half-dozen slavers alone, but would one half-drugged mage be any help? No. He shouldn’t even be _considering_ this, the very idea of it was insane.

There were voices outside the doors now; he was out of time. He had to decide, _fast_.

“Can you fight?” he snapped. The mage stared. Blinked. Shook his head, as if to clear it. How badly were those drugs messing with his mind? “In about a minute there will be slavers in here to take all of you away, _can you fight?_ ”

The mage nodded to him, jerky and pained. “I can… fight.” His eyes flashed again, glowing. “They will not take me.”

His voice gave Tao the shivers; there was something otherworldly about it. “Okay, good,” Tao said. “Wait for my signal. We won’t have a rat’s chance in Hell unless we attack at the same time.”

A labored breath, and a flash of something twisted across his face. His voice changed, less resonant, more frightened. “No, I’ll - I’ll hurt -”

Shit, what kind of fucking nasty concoction had he been given? Tao rummaged through his bag and pulled out a healing potion. “You’re no use to me if you can’t even string a damned sentence together,” he said, holding it out. “Take this, quick. What’s your name?”

Stiff, bloody fingers reached for the little bottle. There was blood under his nails; Tao decided he didn’t want to know how that had happened. “Jongin,” the mage croaked. He clumsily uncorked the bottle and tipped it down his throat.

“My name is Tao,” Tao replied, watching in satisfaction as Jongin’s glassy gaze cleared, and some straightness returned to his spine, even as his eyes widened in surprise. “And I’m risking my bloody life for you, so you’d better be ready to back me up.” He searched Jongin’s features, still wide-eyed and terrifyingly blank. “Creators, I hope I know what I’m doing,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Scraping at the door. Tao stepped back immediately, blending once more into the shadows. Jongin’s eyes went even wider, tracking Tao’s movements but squinting as if he was hard to see. He could see through Tao’s illusion, then. That wasn’t very surprising - Tao wasn’t a true mage, and Jongin obviously was.

The door opened. Jongin froze, glanced around wildly, then dropped his head, slumping sideways against the bars as if unconscious. Just in time, too - the slavers stomped in, bringing torches with them that cast flickering light over all the cages. Tao shrank back, attempting to meld with the shadows, his throwing knives out and ready in his hands.

He was good with his knives, but not good enough to take on six armed thugs and their boss. So he watched, sipping silent, shallow breaths through parted lips, and waited.

The slavers started with the cages closest to the door, roughly waking their prisoners, slapping manacles on their wrists and chaining them in a line. Still drugged, the prisoners were uniformly sluggish and compliant, clearly confused or outright unaware of what was happening. Jongin acted the same, not very convincingly, but the slavers weren’t paying enough attention to notice.

Tao skirted the edges of the room, moving towards the door, holding his cloak of shadows around himself as tightly as he could manage. It was draining, but necessary. As the thugs moved to open the last cage and Jongin pretended to be roused by their loud voices and rough hands, Tao loosened his grip on his shadows just enough. 

Looking over his captor’s shoulder, Jongin caught Tao’s eyes. Tao nodded to him, shifting his stance to something ready.

In a blink, Jongin’s dark eyes were subsumed, taken over with glowing green until no pupil remained. The thug yelled in surprise, and all the other thugs turned to see why, and Tao didn’t wait to see what happened next. Shedding his shadows, he leapt.

The first thug went down before she could shout, Tao’s thrown knife lodged in the back of her neck. The second shouted as he went down, hitting the ground under Tao’s weight, as Tao scrambled to find a similar weak spot to finish the job.

Light, heat, a crackle that made Tao’s ears pop. Lightning lanced over Tao’s head, so close he imagined he could feel his hair singe, illuminating everything in blinding purple, a thunderclap nearly drowning out the screams. Weapons were drawn, voices started yelling, several of the captives crouched and covered their heads in confused terror, and as Tao slit the throat of the man under him, he noticed with both elation and fear that his attack had gone entirely unnoticed. The three remaining thugs were all turned towards Jongin, who snarled like a literal animal, glowing eyes and sparking hands, daring them to try it.

This enclosed space was way too dangerous, with lightning sparking everywhere. Tao grabbed the chain of the lead prisoner and yanked, urging them all out the door and down the stairs.

He realized his mistake when his eyes adjusted to the shadows of the staircase, and he found himself face-to-face with the head slaver, one foot already on the bottom stair. Internally swearing, Tao dropped the chain and drew his blades.

His first two throws were expected; the knives were knocked out of the air by the slaver’s broadsword, clattering against the stone stairs. The third connected - the slaver clearly hadn’t expected Tao to be that fast a draw - but it glanced off of the man’s gorget. He drew his two largest daggers, nearly big enough to be called short swords, and brought them up as the slaver’s sword came down.

The impact jarred through Tao’s arms and all the way into his shoulders. He planted his feet and twisted, trapping the slaver's blade and wrenching it to the side, and slashed into the opening created. The slaver managed to jump back, Tao’s dagger glanced across the slaver's leather breastplate, and Tao swore, catching himself on the wall before he overbalanced and fell down the stairs.

The slaver retaliated immediately, coming at Tao with a rough but powerful upward angled swing. Tao twisted, but he wasn't quite fast enough; the sword bit into his side. He bit back a cry of pain, stuttering to a halt as steel scraped his ribs.

For just a moment, the slaver's blade was stuck, caught on the cut edges of Tao’s leathers. In the momentary opening, Tao turned his own blade inward and shoved it up under the slaver's belt, directly into his belly.

Gasping, the slaver froze. Tao wrenched the sword in his side out, pulled the man's arm up, and drove his other dagger in between breastplate and pauldron, going for the heart via the armpit.

The slaver dropped. Heaving a breath, Tao winced and put his hand to the wound in his side. He was bleeding, pretty badly, but most of the force of the slash had been absorbed by his armor. It hurt awfully, but he would live.

The slaver was probably dead, but Tao wasn't leaving it to chance. He staggered down the stairs, dropped to one knee, pulled the man's head back, and cut his throat, just to be certain. Wiping his dagger on the man's shirt, Tao stood and looked back up the stairs.

The prisoners had stopped, trapped between his fight and Jongin’s behind them. There would be no getting past them; they took up the entire staircase. “Come on!” Tao yelled, moving out of the way, out onto the open, empty dock. “Hurry!”

They stumbled down the stairs, nearly tripping over each other, over the chains. Still drugged, still woozy. Once the last was out of the way, Tao raced past them and up the stairs, grimacing, with his hand pressed over his wound.

He stopped in the doorway at the top, leaning against it to catch his breath.

All of the thugs were dead. Other than the two Tao had done in, the rest were all burnt, smoking, felled by lightning. The stench was awful, and getting worse by the moment.

In the middle of it all was Jongin, crouched in the gore, pressing his hands to either side of his head and rocking slightly.

Wincing, Tao hauled himself off the wall and stepped gingerly around the bodies. “Jongin,” he called, soft. “Jongin? You alive?”

Wide, dark eyes peered fearfully at him from behind a sweaty curtain of hair. Jongin looked terrified, but at least his eyes were human again.

“I can still hear it,” Jongin whimpered. “Andraste, make it stop, I can't -” A lightning bolt twitched across his fingers, arcing directly through his hair. Jongin shut his eyes tightly, clenching his hands into fists. “Make it stop!”

Shit, was he actually insane? Had Tao somehow picked up an insane mage? Sinking to his knees, Tao reached out. “Jongin. _Jongin_. Look at me.” He took the risk and cupped Jongin’s face in one hand, the hand that wasn’t bloody. Jongin’s skin was feverishly hot and somehow also clammy. “Calm the fuck down. It’s over.”

The poor kid was shaking so hard, Tao almost couldn’t keep a grip on his sweaty skin. Tao knew they had to get out of there, every instinct was screaming at him to run, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to leave until Jongin was at least not crying anymore. Shit, he wasn’t _that_ callous.

He kept talking, repeating, “it’s over, you’re safe,” and other rubbish. Eventually, Jongin stopped trembling, and his hands ceased to spark, and his skin returned to a normal, if still sweaty, temperature.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m sorry, I - did I hurt you? Did I hurt _anyone_?”

“Only the assholes trying to enslave you,” Tao assured him. He took Jongin’s hand, hiding his wince as the movement jostled his side, and squeezed Jongin’s fingers. “You’re alive, and those other people they tried to take are alive, and most importantly, _I’m_ alive, so you did good.”

Jongin’s gaze landed on the burned, mangled bodies, and he drew in a shaky breath. “You promise?” he asked, sounding small.

Shit. Tao had to turn away from those big brown eyes, they were making his stomach do painfully guilty flops.

Or maybe that was the bleeding wound in his side. 

“I do,” Tao said. “Come on, let’s get out of here before anyone investigates.” He stood, and pulled Jongin to his feet. Standing, he was surprised how big the young man actually was - only a little bit shorter than Tao himself, and easily as broad. He’d seemed very small before, somehow.

It wasn’t until they were past the bodies and halfway down the stairs that Jongin gasped and said, “You’re hurt!”

Tao flashed him an incredulous look. “You noticed,” he grumbled. “I don’t suppose you’re any good at healing?”

Jongin’s expression crumpled inwards. “No,” he said bitterly. “I never got the hang of it. Only destruction and terror.”

Tao clasped Jongin’s shoulder. “Well, your destruction was pretty useful today,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get a potion and be just fine.” Stiffly, he kept going down the stairs, out onto the now-empty dock.

The prisoners were already gone. The chains and manacles they had worn were empty on the ground, and the sword of the slaver leader that Tao had killed was lying next to them, blade chipped and mangled. It wasn’t made for cutting through steel, but one of the prisoners had been desperate enough to make it work, to free them all. Tao could only hope they’d gotten away safely.

Jongin was staring blankly. At the body of the slaver leader, the body of the Coterie thief who’d been double-crossed. At the empty, underground dock and the ship, now abandoned, moored just past. At the chains.

“Hey,” Tao asked. “Hey, are you okay?”

The eyes that looked up to meet his were constricted fearfully now, pinprick pupils in a sea of soft brown. Tao reached out again, just an instinct.

Jongin pulled away.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, and it sounded less like a command and more like a plea. “Get away from me, you have to get - Run.”

“Okay, I won’t touch you,” he said. Jongin’s expression twisted in response, as if he couldn’t decide how to feel about that. “You should get out of here, get somewhere safe. Go home.”

The silence that stretched, and the look of Jongin’s hunched shoulders, told Tao what Jongin did not voice.

“You... don’t have anywhere to go, do you?” he guessed. 

Miserably, Jongin shook his head. “I can’t go back to the Gallows,” he whispered, and Tao winced. A rogue Circle mage. Great. “I have no home, I don’t know anything about the city.” He bit his lip and met Tao’s eyes, the unspoken question hanging between them.

Shit. Tao could not be caught harboring an apostate, especially not one who had escaped so recently that his robes were still bloody, but he couldn’t just leave the guy to fend for himself, either. “Alright, come on,” he sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”

They traveled through the Undercity, mostly because Tao knew no one would look twice at his wound or the blood that covered them both down here. Most of the people who used the Undercity for travel - or who _lived_ here - had seen worse, done worse, been covered in worse, or all three.

Jongin stayed very close to him, clearly terrified of the surroundings and the strangers. It was exasperating, because Tao wanted to point out that most of these people wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about him, and that Jongin himself could probably destroy anyone who tried to hurt him with no more than a thought. He didn’t say anything about it, though, and tried to distract him with small talk.

With a little questioning, he found out that Jongin had run away from the Gallows earlier that same day, and that he didn’t remember exactly how he had gotten captured by slavers, as the last thing he remembered was running towards the ferry docks that would take him from the small island where the Gallows stood to the city mainland. He had not seen his assailants, and had not awoken until he was already in the cage. He also learned that Jongin was not a Kirkwall native, but had been born in the kingdom of Starkhaven to the north, and that he had lived in Circles his entire life, from the time he was six years old and onward.

He knew absolutely nothing about city life, and even less about life in Kirkwall, which, like Starkhaven, was one of a half-dozen loosely-allied city states called the Free Marches. Life in Kirkwall was always rough, but especially since the former Viscount had been brutally murdered three years previous, things had been… chaotic.

Tao didn’t offer up any information about himself. Jongin seemed all too eager to talk about his past, as if talking about something familiar made him feel less like his entire world had been upended.

Tao knew the feeling.

They eventually emerged in an alley near the edge of Lowtown, and Tao ushered Jongin hurriedly along, keeping them to the shadows so that no one would make a fuss about the blood. Around the corner and down a ways, Tao pulled Jongin into a shopfront.

The few patrons inside all turned to look when they entered, but turned away just as quickly, every one of them taking in the state of Jongin and Tao’s dress and deciding it would be entirely better not to ask. Ignoring them, Tao went straight up to the counter. “Lirene?”

“Who’s calling?” The shopkeep came out from the back room, crates in hand. “Oh no, not you again.”

Tao flashed a brilliantly insincere smile. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble, serah. Just to buy a potion, if you have one, and to beg a little indulgence for my friend here.”

Lirene was a thin, dark-haired, middle-aged woman who had spent the last decade sternly telling people off, and looked the part. She set the crates down on the counter and looked them both over critically. “Come on, then,” she said.

They followed her into the back room, Jongin trailing in Tao’s shadow.

“Alright,” Lirene said. “What’s your story?”

Jongin hesitated, and Tao jumped in for him. “He’s just arrived,” Tao said quickly, digging for his belt purse. “Running. You know how it goes.” Lirene nodded, because she absolutely did know how it could go. That was why Tao had brought them here. “Needs a change of clothes, a place to stay for a night or so, maybe a way to earn a few coin.” He dropped a silver into Lirene’s hand. “For that potion?”

She took his coin and handed him a small bottle from the storage shelves around them. “I see. Fine, take him to the back, I’ll go see what’s in the donation box.” She left, and Tao immediately tossed the potion back, sighing in relief when he felt his wound close over and the pain fade.

Looking lost, Jongin turned a slow circle, staring at their surroundings. “Lirene’s Fereldan Imports,” he read off the side of a crate. “Who goes out of their way to buy Fereldan imports?”

“Fereldans,” Tao said dryly. “Lirene got her start here helping refugees from the Blight seven years ago.” Jongin looked up at him sharply. “She knows what she’s about, and I’ve never seen her turn away anyone who needed help, Fereldan or not.”

Jongin let out a slow breath. “Okay,” he said. “But… then what?” He met Tao’s eyes, fear poorly disguised on his face. “What do I do now? Where do I go?”

“You’re a free man, Jongin, you can do anything you want. Lirene will help you get on your feet.” He shrugged. “You might want to change your look. The clothes she brings are almost certainly going to be Fereldan, you ever think about taking on a Fereldan accent? Maybe cutting your hair?”

“What?”

“You’ll be fine.” Tao turned to go. “Good luck.”

“Tao!” Jongin grabbed his wrist. A shock went up Tao’s arm, making his spine shudder, and he looked over his shoulder, startled. “Please… Can you stay? Please stay, just for a bit, I don’t have…”

This was a snare Tao was not about to get tangled in. He pulled away, and did his best to ignore the heart-wrenching aura of pitifulness that Jongin was exuding. “You are a very strong mage,” Tao told him, “and Lirene will help you. You’ll be fine, I promise.” He patted Jongin’s shoulder. “It was nice to meet you.”

He left the back room before he could think too hard about it, skittering out the door. Out in the street, he breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to head home. It had been a long, painful, and disappointingly unprofitable day.

On his way, he swung past one of the caches, ducking into an alley and pulling out the fake brick in the wall to rummage through the contents. Tidbits of uninteresting gossip, badly-worded pleas for help, and a couple of worthless trinkets; nothing useful. Nothing that would turn into a job, or that he could exploit for his own ends. Annoyed, Tao put the hidden cache back the way he had found it and headed back out to the street.

His own apartment was on the other side of Lowtown, but Tao was in no real hurry to get home tonight. He spent a few copper on an apple and then went ahead and lifted a hot ham-roll from another stand, one that was overpriced and staffed by a snooty woman who had thrown things at him in the past. It wasn’t much of a dinner, but he had little fresh at home so it would have to do for now.

As he ambled through the Lowtown marketplace, eating, Tao spotted some very shiny silver armor moving with purpose down the street. If the silverite - expensive, rare, characteristic - wasn’t a good enough indication, the red-and-gold robes and the flaming sword sigils on the shields were definitely a tip-off.

Templars. Two of them, high-ranking judging by the shape of the armor, and making a direct beeline for Lirene’s.

Tao stopped, his apple caught between his hand and his teeth. Were they heading for Jongin?

More to the point… would it be prudent to get involved? The Templars had the law backing them. And Jongin probably wasn’t in _very_ much danger. Templars were supposed to _protect_ the mages they watched, weren’t they?

It wasn’t any of his business. Mind made up, Tao turned his back on them and started home.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The shopkeeper Lirene showed Jongin to a room behind the back room where there were a few simple cots, and left him there with a bowl of turnip stew and a pile of used, but clean, clothes. Jongin was hungry enough that he ignored the clothes in favor of the food, shoveling the greyish glop into his mouth. It wasn’t as awful as it looked, which was a blessing.

_This is pathetic._

Jongin froze still, staring into his bowl, as a fresh wave of terror crashed over him. The demon had been with him when he had awoken, but the outpouring of power Jongin had used to protect himself from the slavers had drained them both. It hadn’t spoken since then, until this moment.

He swallowed his mouthful. “If I’m so pathetic, why are you still here?” he said out loud. His voice and hands were shaking, but he did his best not to show his fear. Not that it mattered, the thing was in his head, it knew everything he was thinking and feeling, everything that he was. “Leave me to my patheticness.”

_No. You need me._

“I need _you_?” Jongin went back to eating, continuing his thought in his head. Letting the demon take him was suicide, and not in a metaphorical way, either. Jongin had _seen_ what happened to mages who gave in to demons. He needed a demon like he needed a stab wound in the chest - and actually, the stab wound would probably be less painful and less fatal.

No, what he really needed was someone like Tao - someone who could help him, guide him. Someone who knew how to be a normal citizen and could show him what to do.

Annoyance not his own filtered through his mind. _That man is a shiftless, cowardly fool,_ the demon sneered. _You don’t need him._

“He saved my _life,_ ” Jongin argued, drawn into the internal conversation despite himself.

_He did no such thing. You could have saved all of those people single-handedly, you were just too afraid._

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Finishing off his stew, Jongin wiped his mouth on his ruined sleeve. “I would never have been able to do it if he wasn’t there. I would have panicked and frozen.” He’d done it before, many times; the images of all the times he’d failed to stand up to an aggressor flashed through his mind.

The demon went curiously silent for a long moment. Jongin downed half of the tankard of water he had been brought, and grimaced at the state of his hands. There was blood under his nails, and he had no idea how it had gotten there.

_It’s from one of the slavers. I took a chunk out of him as the drugs were taking effect. They caught us as we just about to leave that fortress, even I didn’t see it coming. I tried to protect you._

Oh. “Thanks, I guess?” Jongin really had no idea what to say to that.

_You are welcome, my little mage._

Exasperation was starting to override the fear that any second could be his last. Jongin stood and made his way to the washbasin in the corner. “My name is Jongin. If you’re going to be in my head, use my damned name.”

_Will you use mine?_

Jongin stopped in the middle of rolling up his sleeves. “You… have a name?”

_Many. But you may call me Ardor._

Ardor. Of course. “You’re a Desire demon.” He should have known.

Laughter. _If you like._

As Jongin washed the blood from his hands, his mind flitted over to what was going to come next. He had no idea where he even was within the city, let alone where he could go, or how he was going to survive. He had no money, no food, nothing to trade. If he was in Starkhaven where he had grown up, he would at least have an _idea_ of what to do, but Kirkwall was a mystery to him. Despite having lived here for six years, this was the first time he’d been outside of the walls of the Gallows - he didn’t even know what part of the city he currently was in.

 _And this is how your hero left you,_ Ardor whispered. _Destitute and alone._

Jongin scowled at himself in the cloudy mirror above the basin. “It’s probably a good thing he left,” he snapped, “since I am a _possessed abomination._ At least this way you can’t hurt him.”

Feigned affront drifted through his mind. _Hurt him? Me?_

“If Tao hadn’t left, you would have seduced him. Or eaten him. Or both. Don’t think I didn’t feel you _looking_ at him.” With his black hair and eyes, his sleek black clothes, his deadly, graceful movement, Tao was certainly worth looking at, but feeling the demon assessing the man’s attributes had left Jongin feeling greasy, and slightly ill.

_You have a low opinion of my appetites. Maybe I wanted something less… physical from him._

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Huffing a breath, Jongin turned to change into his new clothes.

_Is that your bias about me talking, or is it your attraction to him?_

“Please shut up.” He’d been given a well-worn, roughspun tunic in faded red, dark brown trousers, and a thick, surprisingly well-made leather belt. The tunic was too large, and the trousers were too tight, but they were clean and not mage robes so Jongin supposed they were an improvement.

_Why does this feel so strange against our skin? Don’t you ever wear pants?_

Jongin adjusted himself. “I’ve belonged to a Circle since I was six years old. We wear robes, not pants.”

_Fascinating. What is a Circle?_

Pausing, Jongin stared incredulously at nothing. “How could you… not know what a Circle is?”

 _Because you’re my first, Jongin._ Jongin got the impression of batting eyelashes and pouting lips.

He ignored the demon’s attempts to tease. “Aren’t there memories of the Circles in the Fade?”

_I’m certain there are, but there are a lot of memories in the Fade. Until I met you, I never had much interest in the world beyond the Veil._

“I’m flattered.” Rather than spending the time and energy to put the history of magic into words, Jongin just brought the memories into his mind. He thought of the nightmares he’d had as a child, of waking up screaming with exploded bits of furniture all around him. Of his horrified father and his sorrowful mother turning him over to the Circle in Starkhaven, housed within Corin’s Lookout, a massive tower at the high point of the city. Learning to control his magic, learning to _cast,_ under the eyes of the senior Enchanters and the Templars, always watching.

Then, the fire.

_The entire tower burned down? What happened?_

“We don’t know for sure,” Jongin said. There was a small belt-purse that had been wrapped in the clothes. Jongin upended it and found a few silver pieces and a single bottle of healing potion. Incredibly generous, considering the circumstances. “There are rumors that it was a plot to weaken the throne. Most of the mages and all of the Templars were killed. Those of us who survived were sent here, to Kirkwall.”

_To the Gallows._

“I thought they were joking when I heard the name,” Jongin muttered. “Why would _anyone_ call a Circle of Magi ‘The Gallows’? It should have been my warning.” He sighed. “I can stay here tonight, but in the morning I’ll need to figure something else out. I need to find shelter. And food.”

 _There’s always underground._ Jongin saw a flash of the staircase they’d come up earlier behind his eyelids.

“I’ll pass, thank you. I’m even _more_ likely to be murdered down there.” 

_But what IS a Circle?_ Ardor asked. _You didn’t answer that._

“Mages are dangerous,” Jongin explained, as he stood to go back out to the front of the shop. Maybe he could help stock shelves, or something. “Untrained mages are even _more_ dangerous. Not only is there risk of us blowing ourselves up or going insane, we are extraordinarily susceptible to possession.” He scowled. “As you may have noticed.”

Jongin imagined that he could see Ardor pursing its lips. _So it is a cage._

“It’s _safety,_ ” Jongin muttered. “Protection for the world from mages who cannot control themselves, who are too weak-willed to resist demons.” That last was pointedly directed, at Ardor, and, bitterly, at himself. “And… and protection for the mages, from people who are afraid. In this town, _everyone_ is afraid of - ”

The door opened, and he abruptly cut himself off as Lirene came into the back. “You. You’re a mage?” Jongin’s eyes widened, which seemed to be answer enough. “You need to hide, right now.” She shoved a table to the side, kicked the rug that was under it out of the way and pulled up a trapdoor that was underneath it.

“What?”

“Templars,” she said, and Jongin’s blood ran cold, freezing him in place. “Boy, are you an idiot? _Move!_ ”

A spark lit in his mind, Ardor shoving its way through Jongin’s frigid terror and forcing Jongin’s limbs to move. He dropped himself into the cellar and let Lirene close him in, shuddering at the sound of the table being placed over the door, trapping him in the dark.

_If you had to, you could explode your way out of here. Stop panicking._

That was easy for an otherworldy _demon_ to say. With a careful, barely whispered word, Jongin conjured a tiny flame in one hand. Fire spells had never been his strong suit, but this spell was basic enough even he could do it.

Damp, rough-hewn stone walls and rotting crates surrounded him. It appeared to be a storage cellar, and it appeared to go further than just the back room. Jongin moved away from the trapdoor, just in case.

 _You shouldn’t even be hiding,_ Ardor said, sounding exasperated. _What are they going to do? You could kill them with a thought._

Actually, he couldn’t, not unless he got very, very lucky. Inside his mind, with images as much as words, Jongin explained that Templars were specifically conditioned and trained to resist magic, and the more powerful ones could force spells to fizzle out or even turn magic back on itself, releasing a wave of holy energy that could stun, maim, kill.

There were voices above him. Jongin held his breath and listened. They were questioning the patrons of the shop, and they were clearly looking for Jongin. He recognized Knight-Captain Cullen’s rounded Ferelden accent, and - 

And then he heard Ser Karras’s voice.

Memories rushed him, unbidden and unwanted, of shouting and pain and bloody teeth in the mirror. His hands restrained, his knees bruised, his mouth - he shied away from the thought.

 _Oh._ Ardor’s voice was soft, revelatory. It hadn’t known. It hadn’t dug that deeply yet.

Shut up, Jongin thought viciously. Stay out of my memories.

_You should have killed him._

Jongin was shaking. He quenched the little flame in his hand preemptively, so it wouldn’t spill onto the musty crates around him. You know nothing about this, he said to Ardor. You can never understand what it’s like in the Gallows.

 _We’re not in the Gallows now,_ Ardor whispered. _He is right there, above you. You could destroy him. He’d never see it coming._ The image rose unbidden in Jongin’s mind, of calling a lightning bolt down to fry Karras inside his own armor.

Digging his nails into his palms, Jongin pushed the thought away. Ardor wanted him to give in to his anger and pain, to lose himself in revenge, so that it could sink its claws deeper into Jongin’s psyche. So it could break free.

He wasn’t going to fall for it. He hadn’t been strong enough to keep the demon out during his Harrowing, but he wasn’t going to let it win now.

 _This is why you never amounted to anything before,_ Ardor snapped. It sounded frustrated, which Jongin counted as a win. _You never act. You cower and hide and you let the world stomp all over you. It’s pathetic, you have far too much power for that._

“Dog-lord _bitch!_ ” It was Karras’s shout, startling Jongin so badly that he actually jumped backwards and nearly knocked a stack of old crates over. He steadied it hurriedly, heart pounding like a drum. “Where are you hiding him, you - ”

“That’s _enough,_ Karras!” Cullen’s tone snapped like a whip. Jongin cringed instinctively. “He clearly isn’t here. He must have passed through earlier in the day.” Volume lowering such that Jongin had to strain to hear it, Cullen continued, “The phylactery isn’t being as responsive as it should be. Perhaps something went wrong with the activation ritual. We’ll take it back to the Gallows and try again in the morning.”

There was more discussion, more threats to the shopkeep, but Jongin didn’t hear it for the relief that poured through his body. They were leaving. They wouldn’t try to come after him again until the morning.

He had a reprieve.

As metal-topped boots clomped out of the shop, Jongin dropped to his knees, heedless of the damp from the floor soaking into his new trousers, and breathed out hard. His world spun, just a little.

 _You can’t stay here tonight,_ Ardor pointed out. _If you aren’t going to fight, you have to get far away. Find somewhere safe._

Nowhere was safe, Jongin knew that. He was just prolonging the inevitable. But he did need to get away, if only to protect Lirene, who had been so kind to him.

Jongin dragged himself to his feet and made his way back to the trapdoor.

It was several minutes before Lirene came to let him out. She looked pale, shaken. Jongin didn’t blame her. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it with every part of his being. “Thank you for protecting me.”

“No thanks needed,” Lirene told him, as she helped him climb out of the cellar. “They’re bullies, the lot of them. I see it all too often in this city.” She patted his shoulder. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave, though.”

“I know,” Jongin said. “Do you have any idea where I might go? A direction?”

She shrugged as she put the rug and table back in place. “You can go out to the Bone Pit and see if they’ll hire you,” she said. “It’s difficult work but the pay is surprisingly good, and they’ll take in anyone, regardless of background. Tell them I sent you, it might help.”

Mining? Jongin wasn’t sure he’d last very long doing that. “I’m afraid I’ll be followed anywhere I go,” he admitted softly. “Is there somewhere that I… won’t be a danger to others?”

Lirene regarded him frankly. “Good of you to consider that,” she said. “There’s extensive cave systems on the Wounded Coast and on Sundermount. Dangerous, but you’re a mage, you’ll be fine. Sundermount might be a better bet, since the Templars would have to go through the Dalish clan that live there in order to get to you.”

So his fate was life as a hermit in a cave, talking to the voice in his head and slowly going insane. Somehow, it seemed fitting. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Lirene, you’ve been incredibly generous.”

Her dark eyes softened. “I’m sorry that the world is like this,” she said. “I’m sorry that you have to go through this. Take care, alright? Andraste guide you.”

Jongin bowed his thanks to her. She returned the bow, but with a Fereldan salute; her forearms crossed in an X over her chest, fists pressed to her shoulders. The familiar gesture immediately brought to mind golden blond hair pulled back in a neat horsetail, dark eyes, the quirk of a tiny smile.

Sehun.

Jongin swallowed back emotions. The day had been so completely insane, he hadn’t even had a moment to consider the brightest spot in his life at the Gallows. Sehun had been there, he was in the room when - Oh, Maker, what must he think of Jongin now?

He pushed back his shame, smiled shakily at Lirene, and took the bag she handed him. It felt heavy. More charity that Jongin couldn’t afford to refuse.

Jongin shouldered his bag and headed for the front door of the shop.

“Jongin. Hey, no, stop!”

Tao. Tao? What? Jongin stopped, wide-eyed, as Tao closed the front door behind him and came straight for Jongin. “You… came back?”

“You can’t go out there. They’re watching the exit, they’re waiting for you.”

Tao came back. To warn him. To stop him from walking into a trap. Jongin forced himself not to drop to the ground in relief again.

_It’s not relief, it’s exhaustion. You can’t keep this up for much longer, Jongin, your body is starting to shut down from the stress._

What a helpful observation. Jongin ignored Ardor and met Tao’s eyes. “Where can I go?” he said.

“The shop only has the one exit,” Lirene said, coming up behind them and looking worried. “It’s built right into the cliff, there’s no back door.”

Jongin’s eyes fluttered shut. “Then I am caught anyway,” he whispered. “Maybe I should just get it over with.”

“What? Seriously? You’re just going to give up?” Tao prodded him in the shoulder. “I’ll get you out. Come on.”

“You don’t have to - ”

“Jongin, come _on._ ” Tao held out his hand.

 _He is sincere about this,_ Ardor said, and sounded as surprised as Jongin felt. _He feels guilty that he abandoned you earlier, when you so clearly needed help. Perhaps your patheticness has its uses, after all._

Jongin was really starting to dislike Ardor. “Thank you,” he said, hating that his thanks was all he had to offer. He took Tao’s hand.

“Go open the door and pretend to be dusting the stoop or something,” Tao told Lirene. “Give it a minute, then close it again.”

She did exactly that, taking a broom with her and sweeping gravel and debris from the front of the shop. Tao dragged Jongin with him into the shadows, and they slipped out behind her. No one passing in the street gave them even a glance.

Night had long since fallen, so the shadows were long and deep and broken only by the occasional lamp or torch on the side of a building. They stayed away from the few people still going about their business, hustling along until they had crossed the entire district.

Finally, Tao pulled Jongin into an alley. “Alright, you should be safe now,” he said. “Relatively, anyway. City gates are that way.” He pointed. “If you travel all night, you may be able to get enough of a head start to get away.”

Jongin leaned on the wall, feeling dead on his feet. His Harrowing seemed like it was a lifetime ago, not that very morning. “Okay,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming back for me. You’ve saved me twice, I can never repay you.”

Tao stared at him. Chest heaving and head drooping with exhaustion, Jongin stared stupidly back, silent.

“Tits of the Ancestors,” Tao swore under his breath. “I can’t do it. Alright, you can stay with me tonight.” Jongin blinked, surprised. “I have wards. It won’t stop them in the end, but it might scramble that tracking spell, slow them down. Come on.”

He took Jongin’s hand, and, too tired and grateful to even consider arguing, Jongin followed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who don’t know EXO: [Jongin](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fmx701924ewd1tukKjHZICMmgLTO-Sob), [Sehun](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AU60DV9qHGZxE1nL_JGupjCdMaoxpFsg), [Tao](https://drive.google.com/open?id=12ifbTScJ6-UaipShMKqVm3p54gDfTAce) (but with long hair.)
> 
> For those who don’t know Dragon Age: [Cullen](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/2/2a/Cullen_Profile_2a.png). [Karras](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/8/87/Karras.png/revision/latest?cb=20140902111222&path-prefix=de). [Kirkwall, the City of Chains](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/4/46/Kirkwall_concept_art_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110125002016).


	2. Chapter 2

Cullen's suite was in the officer's wing, down the hall from the Knight-Lieutenants, and it was at least three times the size of Sehun's single, modest room. As the door closed behind him, Sehun let out a deep sigh. Cullen, like Sehun himself, was Fereldan by birth; his quarters reminded Sehun of his childhood. Heavy carved wood furniture, dark and muted colors, the smell of cedar and embrium. All it needed was the sound of mabari barking in the distance.

“You wanted to see me, ser?” he asked.

Cullen was at his table in front of the fire. “Have a seat, Sehun,” he said, sounding quite tired. Sehun did as he was bade, dropping into the unpadded wooden chair across from his captain, as Cullen poured him a modest amount of imported Antivan brandy and slid it across the table.

“Did you - um. Forgive me, ser, but... Jongin?”

Eyeing him, Cullen took a swig from his own glass. “We had no luck, if that is what you are asking,” he said. Sehun sighed, slumping back in his chair, aware that Cullen was still watching him. “He’s been on your mind, then.”

“How could he fail to be,” Sehun mumbled guiltily. He drank. Generally he was more of a wine person than a liquor person, but Cullen did like his brandy and this was far from the first time in the last six years that Sehun had found himself in his Captain’s quarters after hours. They were friends, as much as a superior officer could ever allow himself to be friends with a subordinate.

“The trail was muddied, as it so often is within a city,” Cullen admitted. “We ended up tracking him to Lirene’s.” Sehun stiffened, looking up in surprise. “Yes, that was my reaction, as well. I know you made use of her services when you first arrived in Kirkwall, and I was wondering, had you ever spoken about it to Jongin?”

Sehun wracked his memory. Lirene of Gwaren was one of the only Ferelden-born citizens of Kirkwall who had immigrated _before_ the Blight; she’d already been established as a shopkeep before masses of Fereldan refugees had started pouring into the Free Marches. Her charity had provided food, clothing, shelter and medical care to hundreds of people in those first few terrible years, nearly single-handedly keeping the refugee crisis from boiling over.

Lirene was the reason Sehun was a Templar at all. When he’d arrived in Kirkwall, he was friendless, homeless and all but penniless; she was the one who had introduced him to Cullen. Sehun remembered being so awed that a Ferelden not even two years his senior - twenty, to Sehun’s eighteen - was already the Knight-Commander’s right-hand man. Cullen had had a zealous light in his eyes, a power in his speeches, that had drawn Sehun in like a moth to a candle; he’d immediately signed on as a recruit.

Six years later, the zealotry had faded from Cullen’s eyes, but Sehun’s respect for him had not. Six years later, Sehun was a full knight of the Order, and he had never once regretted his decision. “I don’t think I ever told him about it, no,” Sehun said. “I don’t really… like to talk about that time.”

“Hmm.” Cullen took another swig, staring pensively into the fire. “I wonder then if perhaps he found someone to direct him. It seems convenient that he would find his way immediately to the one person in this city most likely to give him aid.” He shook his head. “In any case, he was gone when we arrived. Lirene maintained that she had seen no such young man, but…”

“She wouldn’t tell you even if she had,” Sehun agreed.

“Precisely.” Cullen reached into his shirt and pulled out a chain. On it hung a small, brass-capped crystal phial filled with deep red blood - Jongin’s blood. “Sehun, Jongin’s phylactery has been tampered with.”

Sehun nearly choked on his brandy. His stomach turned guiltily. “What? What do you mean?”

Watching his expression carefully, Cullen raised an eyebrow. “The seal was broken, sometime between when the ritual to activate it occurred and when it was delivered to my office. And it is difficult to tell, but it seems to be just a little less full than the other phylacteries I’ve used.”

Sehun kept his features carefully blank, just concerned enough to be convincing. “Do you have any idea who would have done such a thing?” he asked.

“Well, no one can seem to tell me exactly who was responsible for running it from the vault up to my quarters,” Cullen said dryly, “but I do know of at least one person who was a _bit_ upset that he was forbidden from the hunting party.”

Did Cullen know, or was he bluffing? Sehun held his ground, just in case. “I would never do such a thing, ser,” he lied.

“Wouldn’t you?” Cullen searched his face, then sighed heavily, tucking Jongin’s phylactery back into the collar of his shirt. “I shall have to take your word for it, I suppose. In any case, according to Orsino, it means the phylactery won’t be quite as accurate, but it should still function. We will find him soon enough.” He threw back the rest of his brandy. “I’d ask if you cared for a game of chess, but it is getting late, and if I recall correctly, you are on the dawn shift in the morning.” He stood, and Sehun finished off his own glass and stood as well. “I bid you goodnight, Sehun.”

Sehun gave Cullen a Fereldan salute - arms crossed over the chest, fists pressed to shoulders. Cullen flashed him a smile at the gesture, and Sehun returned the smile and let himself out.

He managed to wait until he was all the way back down the stairs and safely ensconced in his room before he put his hand over his chest. “Ma halani,” he whispered.

The veridium locket hidden under his shirt heated, just as Yixing had said it would. 

Phylacteries were made to track escaped mages. Sehun had not taken enough blood from Jongin’s to create a true copy of his phylactery, but it would warm when Jongin was close by, and that would have to be enough. There were few mages Sehun trusted to help him with something like this, but Yixing was Jongin’s friend. He’d promised he would tell no one what Sehun had done, and it seemed he had kept his promise. Sehun would have to find a way to thank him.

“Ma serannas,” he murmured, and the locket went cool.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Some people referred to Kirkwall as the City of Chains, and the epithet was apt enough. Founded over a thousand years previous at the very height of the ancient Tevinter Imperium, Kirkwall had been built, figuratively and literally, upon the backs of slaves.

Several brutal wars later, the city was, ostensibly, now free, but it had been specifically designed for the slave trade and no matter how many times slavers were ousted, they always seemed to come back. Kirkwall was too conveniently located, its underground docks too well-suited to clandestine deals, its poor too numerous and too downtrodden to be missed. Worse, after the Blight in Ferelden seven years previous and the glut of terrified refugees that had resulted, the number of homeless in the city had doubled. There were a lot of people who wouldn’t be immediately missed.

Tao didn’t like the idea of predators in his adopted home, but Kirkwall was full of easy prey. The predators would never go away.

The city was built directly into the side of a jut of high jet cliffs on the Waking Sea, city districts carved like staggered stairs leading up to the peak, and the Undercity chiseled out of the belly of the cliff below. The public docks were at the lowest point, clinging to the rock like rickety wooden barnacles. Lowtown sprawled out above them, dirty and noisy and rough. Hightown was above that, separated by a three-story wall, just as rough-hewn but with a polished marble veneer over the jet-colored stone, which Tao had always found to be poetic, in an on-the-nose sort of way. 

At the very highest point sat the two largest buildings on the mainland - the viscount’s keep, and the Chantry, both with spires rising imperiously above the rest of the city, visible from almost anywhere within. The viscount’s keep had stood empty now for three years, ‘guarded’ by a contingent of Templars. No one had come forward with a claim to the throne, and for good reason - though it was not in any way official, everyone knew that the city was controlled by Knight-Commander Meredith, and no one wanted to risk challenging her for it.

Tao spent his sunrise in the courtyard between the two imperious buildings, standing with his eyes fixed on the Chanter’s board and his ears open for gossip.

There was always something to hear in Hightown in the early mornings. Servants owned the streets before the sun was high, bustling busily to and fro on their errands, greeting each other, gossiping, laughing. There was an entire community here that only appeared around the dawn hours, when the nobles and magistrates were still tucked in their plush beds. Loitering here had netted him more than a few job leads in the past, and it was a relatively pleasant way to start the morning.

In his efforts to look innocently occupied, Tao noticed something he hadn’t before. A wanted poster with a decently sized reward - and a description of Jongin. He waited until the guards weren’t looking, then tore the poster down, folding it and tucking it into his bag.

“You are distinctly unsubtle,” a smooth voice said in his ear.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tao said instinctively, and then turned to see who it was. “Ah, Charade. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this very early morning, serah?”

Charade was a pretty but not particularly remarkable-looking woman, reddish-brown hair worn blunt and simple, a little too much paint around her eyes. The only thing that made her stand out was the expensive but well-worn longbow slung across her back. “You planning to hunt down that mark, then?” she asked. “I was considering it, but apostates are a bit too troublesome for my blood. I like my skin attached and unscalded, thanks.”

“What?” For a moment, Tao was genuinely confused, and then he realized she was referring to the wanted poster. “Oh. Maybe. It’s an awfully nice reward.” He eyed her. “You have that look in your eye again. What’s going on?”

Charade grabbed his hand and looped it inside her elbow, as if she were a gallant and he a highborn lady she was escorting. “I have a job for you.”

“A paying job?” he asked, as she led him from the Chantry courtyard and down the stairs towards the Hightown gates.

She rolled her eyes. “I know better than to think you’d ever do a job for me as a _favor,_ ” she laughed. “Yes, I’ll pay.”

Eyeing her, Tao asked, “Is this for one of your ‘friends’?”

“It is, not that that matters to you. You don’t need to know who is asking, you just need to do it. I need your _particular_ talents.”

Which meant she needed something stolen. “Fine, just tell me what and where. And for how much.”

They haggled over the specifics as they ambled through the gates and back into Lowtown, switching to discussing the recent dry weather spell as the Lowtown guards went by on patrol, and then smoothly back to discussing crime. The details were nearly settled when Tao had a thought, and abruptly steered Charade to a certain corner of the market.

“Lady Elegant,” Tao greeted, letting a bright, winning smile wash over his face.

Elegant looked up in surprise. “Tao? And Charade, good morning! I apologize if I look a little ragged, it’s early and I had quite a late night last night.” She winked.

Tao laughed as Charade shoved him away and went around the table to claim a hug. “You look lovely as always,” he said, and he wasn’t lying. “Are you open for business yet? I know we’re early.”

“I’m not, but if you have the coin I could be. How can I help?”

Tao made his purchases - he’d given his last potion to Jongin yesterday, and he suspected he was going to be in need of more if he decided to keep the mage around - and handed over the coin. “Elegant, how familiar are you with sense drugs?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.

She cocked her head curiously. “Familiar enough, though I don’t sell any myself. Why?”

“Any idea who might?”

“Tomwise does, I think. Solivitus might, if he could get the ingredients. And there’s another, that retired raider, what was his name. Marvin?”

“Martin,” Charade supplied.

“Yes! Martin. He’s in one of the back rooms at the Hanged Man, or so I hear.” Elegant wouldn’t be caught dead at the Hanged Man, so Tao wasn’t surprised she couldn’t give him a first-hand account. “I suppose I don’t really want to know why you’re asking, do I?”

Tao flashed her a reassuring smile. “I’m not planning to drug anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” She handed him a plain cloth bag with his purchases neatly wrapped inside. “Stay out of trouble, Tao.”

Thanking her, Tao and Charade took their leave. “Sense drugs?” Charade asked. “What’s that about?”

“Nothing, maybe,” Tao said. “Just asking. I’ll take care of that job today, alright? Bring the money by my place tonight.”

“Cocky bastard. Alright, you’re on. Thanks for doing this, Tao.”

“Hey, as long as your ‘friends’ are paying, I’m game. See you later, Charade.”

“Andraste guide you.” She slipped away, blending into the increasing early morning bustle.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin awoke by jackknifing straight up off the floor, a gasp on his lips and his heart pounding out of his chest. 

It took him a long moment of terrified confusion before he remembered where he was, what had happened. “Just a dream,” he told himself, out loud.

_An ugly one,_ Ardor murmured. Pieces of his dream flitted through Jongin’s mind, as if it was a book Ardor was skimming. Silverite and lyrium, blood and bruises, rough hands and sharklike smiles. _Are your dreams always so awful?_

Shut up, he thought fiercely. If you don’t like my dreams, don’t look at them.

_I don’t have much of a choice in that. I live in your dreams._

That might actually be literal. Well, if Ardor didn’t like them, it could do something about them itself.

_Really?_ Surprise brushed Jongin’s mind. _I would have expected you to object to the idea of me altering your dreams._

Jongin grimaced. The thought had just been a fleeting one; neither option was actually appealing. Rather than have to face that choice, he dragged himself out of the roll of blankets that had served as a bed.

Tao lived in a tenement above a shop, third floor, accessed by a narrow, rickety staircase in a back alley. The door had three locks on it and Jongin was almost certain one of them was magical. Inside was stuffy, dark, and cluttered, smelled like some kind of unfamiliar incense, and had exactly one small window, narrow, high and fitted with iron bars.

Jongin had never slept in a space so cluttered and miserable, and that was saying something, considering he’d lived most of his life in what essentially amounted to a dormitory. But beggars could not be choosy, and Jongin had nothing but what Tao had deigned to share with him.

He had splashed some water on his face and was in the process of attempting to untangle his matted hair with his fingers when the door opened. “You’re awake,” Tao said, setting several bags on the floor. “Hungry?”

Jongin turned, and found Tao blatantly dragging his eyes down Jongin’s mussed form, from his ratty hair down his bare chest to the threadbare, donated trousers. His cheeks heated with shame. “Yeah,” he admitted. “And I don’t suppose you know where I can get a bath?”

“A bath, a haircut, and new clothes that actually fit,” Tao agreed. “Changing your look entirely would be smart, at this juncture.” He pulled something out of his bag and held it out.

It was a wanted poster. For him. “Maker’s breath,” Jongin swore. “That was fast.”

“They didn’t include a sketch of you, and most of the description is based on your hair and clothes,” Tao said. “And your accent. Starkhaven accents are a bit of an oddity around here.”

Jongin blinked. “I don’t have an accent.”

“Hah! Yes you do. Soft consonants, broad vowels, that little flip you do with your Rs. It’s sexy.” Tao winked, and Jongin turned abruptly red. Inside his head, he felt Ardor’s amusement at his reaction, which only made his cheeks heat further. “How do you feel about adopting a Fereldan accent? There’s thousands of Fereldans in the city, you’d blend right in.”

The question made Jongin think immediately of Sehun, and how his accent had sounded when they had first met, six years previous. Jongin had been fresh from Starkhaven, and Sehun was still a recruit, not yet a knight, his choppy, harsh Ferelden accent marking him as an outsider as much as his light hair or his fervor to prove himself. Jongin remembered being surprised that the Templars of Kirkwall had accepted a lowborn Fereldan refugee into their ranks - until he saw Sehun fight. Then, he’d understood.

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea,” Jongin murmured. The years had softened Sehun’s accent, but he could remember it, clear as day. It made his heart constrict in his chest. “There’s too many Fereldans with real accents, I think I’d stand out more with a fake accent. I guess I’ll just try to lose my own.”

“As you like.” Tao dropped a bag on the table next to Jongin’s hand, and then moved past, grabbing a basket from his pantry shelves. “It would still be better for you to get out of the city entirely, I think, but a haircut and a change of clothes will help while you’re here.”

“Your accent isn’t local, either,” Jongin said. He’d been so caught up in other things, he hadn’t given it thought before now, and he realized, a bit belatedly, that he knew absolutely nothing about the man who had saved him. “Where are you from?”

Tao paused and looked over his shoulder. “Rivain,” he said.

Jongin huffed in surprise. “I’ve never actually met a Rivaini before,” he admitted.

“Unsurprising. Most of the Rivaini who come through Kirkwall are raiders, maybe some merchants. I doubt any of them ever ended up at the Gallows.” He flashed Jongin a look. “Our mages know better than to come near Andrastian territory.”

“That’s right, Rivain never really heard the Chant, did they? Isn’t most of Rivain actually Qunari?” He eyed Tao skeptically. “You don’t strike me as Qunari.”

“Hah! No. I’m not very religious in any direction.” His unpacking done, Tao came back over to Jongin. “You’re free now, ostensibly. Do you have a home to go back to, outside of the Circle?”

An image of his childhood home flitted through his mind. “No,” Jongin sighed. “My parents are gone now, and my sisters stopped writing to me a decade ago. Starkhaven is where I was born, but there’s nothing for me there now.” He picked morosely at the loose threads on the hem of his tunic. “In any case, there can never be a home for me.”

Tao frowned, pushing a strand of black hair that had come loose from its knot away from his face. “Why?”

“I’m an apostate now,” Jongin said. “My very existence is illegal. I’ll be running for the rest of my life. Inside the city I can hide in crowds or use the buildings to cover my trail; out on the road I will be without cover, easy to track. The closest city-states are Tantervale and Ostwick, and even travelling on horseback it would take days to get to either of them. Assuming I could get a horse.” 

Tao shrugged. “You could get on a boat. The Waking Sea is not very wide.”

“What, and go to Ferelden? Land of dogs and mud?” Jongin wrinkled his nose. “They’re still recovering from the Blight. I’ll pass.”

“Then I suppose you will have to make yourself a home here. Kirkwall isn’t all that bad, once you find your place in the chaos.” Tao offered Jongin a threadbare cushion, then dropped another on the floor and plopped down onto it.

Jongin followed suit, slightly awkward. “I don’t have very many practical skills,” he admitted. “In the Circle, all of our daily needs are tended to. I’ve never had to cook or clean, or even draw my own bathwater. The Tranquil take care of us, and the Templars watch over us.”

Tao flicked the lid off the basket and snorted. “You’re hardly a child, you don’t need a keeper.” He pulled wrapped packages from the basket - bread, dried meat, hard cheeses - and offered them to Jongin. Suddenly aware that he was hungrier than he could ever remember being, Jongin reached to accept them. “And I’ve yet to meet a Templar who wasn’t a colossal prig.”

Jongin stiffened, pausing with his hand on a sweetroll. “The Templars are our protectors,” he argued. “Mages are not well-liked anywhere, but _especially_ not in Kirkwall.”

“Except when they are.” Pulling out one of his smaller knives, Tao began slicing a pear. “Except when a mage holds the highest civilian honor in the city.”

Oh, _honestly_. “The Champion can hardly be held up as an example of what a typical mage can accomplish,” Jongin argued. “He’s an apostate, a refugee, and a noble somehow, I’m still not clear on the details.” He gestured at his donated clothes, his lean form. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not going to be defeating any foreign warlords in single combat any time soon.”

Tao used his knife blade to offer a slice, and Jongin took it, careful of the edge. It was a very good pear, considering. “I don’t even know if there is another Arishok yet,” Tao said, “and if there was, I’d imagine he would avoid Kirkwall after Hawke handed the last one his ass on a platter. That’s not the point.” He stabbed a slice of pork with his knife. “Mages are not just locked in Circles, Jongin. They’re heroes, they’re leaders, they’re scholars and nobles and fucking Orlesian dancing masters. You could have a life outside of the Gallows, _that_ is my point.” He gestured with his knife, the slice of meat flopping about on the blade. “If you want a new life, go take it.”

_Oh,_ Ardor breathed, soft. _Yes. I knew I liked him._

So that was what turned a Desire demon on? Encouragement?

_I mean, the package doesn’t hurt,_ Ardor teased. _He’s quite strapping, isn’t he?_

Shut up.

_You’re blushing, little mage. Stop staring at his shoulders and start listening to his words. He’s making sense._

“You have magic, and you know how to use it,” Tao was saying, popping the bite of pork into his mouth. “That lightning alone would be a welcome addition to any mercenary party. You said you’re not a healer, but I assume you can do more than the lightning?”

“I - yes,” Jongin said. “I specialize in the Primal, Spirit, and Entropy schools. But I - I’m not actually a mage. Not legally.” He lowered his eyes, staring at his food. “I failed my Harrowing.”

Tao watched him impassively. “I haven’t the foggiest notion what any of that means,” he said.

“The Harrowing is the final test to end your apprenticeship and become a legal mage,” Jongin explained. “They, um. They put the mage to sleep, and then use a ritual and a lot of lyrium to lure a demon into the mage’s dreams.”

Frowning, Tao said, “On purpose? But I thought the Templars were terrified of mages getting possessed.”

“That’s the point, actually. The idea is to prove that you can resist possession and defeat a demon single-handedly. It’s how they test that an apprentice is ready to end their schooling.” 

Tao’s eyes bored into him. “What happens to mages who fail?”

“They become abominations,” Jongin said softly. “The demon takes them over, destroys their soul and mutates their body into a horrible monster. That’s why there are always at least four Templars at every Harrowing. They stop the abomination from leaving the Harrowing chamber, they kill it before it can hurt anyone else.”

Silence. Tao looked more than a little unsettled by this.

Jongin tried to keep his voice from shaking. “Not all mages who fail get that far,” he said. “Some mages just… never wake up. For each hour that a mage stays under the spell, the chance that they will emerge as themselves diminishes. If they stay asleep for too long, the risk becomes too great, and the Templars execute them in their sleep to keep them from rising as abominations.”

“Every legal mage has gone through this?” Tao asked. “Every single one?” Jongin nodded. “That’s fucking _barbaric._ Demons are already attracted to mages more than anyone else, why would you invite one?”

“But that’s _exactly_ why. Every mage is at risk of being possessed, all the time. No matter how vigilant they are, no matter how carefully they stay away from necromancy and blood magic, just the fact that magic exists in our souls makes us targets. Mages _have_ to be able to prove they can resist a demon, in order to earn the freedoms of being a fully legal mage.” Jongin shook his head. “Weak-willed mages are a larger danger to the populace than basically _anything_ else,” he said, well aware of the irony that _he_ was saying this.

“Is that you talking,” Tao said bitterly, “or is that the Templars speaking through your mouth?” Jongin didn’t answer him. “So if mages who fail die, then how is it you’re still here?”

Jongin froze momentarily. Shit, he shouldn’t have - what was he going to say?! He couldn’t let Tao guess he was possessed! “I was asleep for too long,” he said, which was the truth, as much as he dared to tell it. “The killing blow was ordered, but I woke up just as it was coming down, and I - ” He stopped. Closed his eyes, tried to push back the image of Maxine screaming.

“You defended yourself,” Tao guessed.

“I was the oldest apprentice left,” Jongin confessed. “My entire class was already Harrowed, years ago. First Enchanter Orsino wouldn’t let me go for my Harrowing. He was afraid I wasn’t ready.” And he was right, Jongin thought bitterly. I wasn’t ready. I am weak.

At the back of his mind, Ardor shifted. Stretched. _Little mage, it murmured, you are not weak. I would not be here if you were._

That was the opposite of the truth, and Jongin’s power in spellcasting was not the kind of strength he was referring to.

“So you didn’t actually fail at all,” Tao was saying. “You didn’t end up possessed, you just took your sweet time and they decided it meant you were _probably_ possessed.”

_No one guesses I am here,_ Ardor commented. _How interesting._

That was because demons didn’t usually hang around in mage’s heads being annoying. They usually just took the mage’s body over and went on a rampage right away. Everyone assumed that if Jongin was an abomination, anyone who laid eyes on him would know it.

_Mmm. I see. Well, their impatience helps me, then._

“Did you actually finish your training, then?” Tao asked. “Was it just that they thought you weren’t, I don’t know, _emotionally_ ready to graduate? You said you had schools you specialize in, so you couldn’t have been too far off from being done.”

Welcoming the change of subject, Jongin explained, and they ate. It was nice to talk about magic, something he was at least reasonably knowledgeable about. It made him feel less useless. “The entropic spells are hardest for me,” he admitted. “I have to be able to concentrate. But I can put someone to sleep, or make them clumsy, or I can… make them confused. Make them afraid.” It was a little embarrassing to admit it. “Not the most useful spells to be good at, really.”

“Are you joking? That would come in handy for me _every single day._ ” Tao popped the last piece of pear into his mouth. “You want to work with me? It would be nice to have someone watching my back.”

Jongin blinked. “I - really? You’re serious?”

Standing, Tao picked up the basket and went to put it back in the pantry. “Sure. I have to work this afternoon, why don’t you tag along?”

In the end, that was exactly what Jongin ended up doing. Tao took him to a bathing-house first, which was awkwardly public but necessary. Blessedly clean, Tao then brought him to a hairdresser’s, somewhere Jongin had never been in his life.

The end result was that his hair was cropped shorter than it had ever been, nearly shaved at the back and sides with a shock of longer hair on top that was pushed up and back with a little wax. Combined with a second outfit of used clothes that Tao had somehow found for him, he had been assured it was a very Fereldan look.

Between the lack of hair and the tightness of the clothes, he felt very exposed, but certainly he looked different enough that someone who didn’t know him well might not recognize him, and that was the point.

In the afternoon, they went to work.

Jongin didn’t really have an idea of what Tao actually _did_ for a living, and Tao was cagey on the subject. So Jongin just followed him, and did as he was told, which mostly involved standing awkward watch as Tao ducked down alleys or climbed ladders in odd corners. Despite Tao insisting he would be useful, he mostly felt useless, and it gave him too much time to nervously imagine the demon in his mind suddenly ripping out of his skin and murdering every hapless passerby in the street.

For one such, though, whatever Tao had to do was not hidden away in a dark corner. It was inside an abandoned building in Hightown. There was no alley mouth for him to stand awkwardly in front of, so Jongin actually got to see what Tao was doing - which turned out to be prying a loose board off a boarded-over doorway, and reaching behind it for a bright red bag. He dumped the bag out and began sifting through the contents.

“Pointless, pointless… oh, that’s interesting, but not helpful… Ah! What’s this?” Tao unfolded a little note and read it quickly. “Finally, a lead.” He put everything back, tied the bag shut, dropped it behind the boards and pushed the loose board back into place. “Alright, _now_ we can get to work.”

“What… what are those?” Jongin asked, as Tao led him back out onto the street.

“Caches,” Tao said. “There’s about eight of them in the city, that I’ve found at least.”

Jongin cocked his head. “Who is leaving things there?”

“An organization. Well, ‘organization’ might be too strong of a word. Have you heard of the Friends of Red Jenny?” Jongin shook his head. “They’re… People. Servants, mostly, and peasants, sometimes criminals or merchants. Anyone can call themselves a ‘friend’.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the cache they had just left. “They leave information and requests in those. It’s anonymous, which is why so many people like to use it. The Chanter’s board and the Viscount’s office don’t always have jobs available in my skillset, so the caches are my most steady source of work.”

Oh! How interesting. “So you found something you can use? A job offer?”

“Yeah, basically. Some poor schmuck lost an amulet. Dropped it down the sewer. They included a description of where they lost it, but whoever dropped it is too scared to go down into the Undercity and look, so they cached a request.”

“You’re going to go find it for them? That’s… really very nice of you.”

Tao shrugged. “It’s work. Anyway, I’ll want to go look at the sewer plans so I have an idea of what part of the Undercity it may have washed into, so I probably won’t be finishing this one today.” He looked up at the sun. “It’s already late afternoon. One more errand, then we can find something to eat, alright?”

Jongin followed him like a puppy, because what else could he do?

As they moved through Lowtown, from the poor parts to the even poorer, Jongin gravitated closer to Tao’s side, casting furtive glances at the people around him. Then, they turned the corner, and Jongin stopped to stare.

That was… a massive oak tree. In the middle of the smallest, most squalid district Jongin had yet seen.

“What is this?” Jongin asked under his breath.

“The alienage.” Tao started forward again. “Don’t stare, we’re outsiders here.”

Jongin hurried to catch up. “No kidding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many elves in one place.”

“They won’t hurt you, just don’t be rude.” He leaned closer, and Jongin tilted his head to hear him. “I need to sneak into one of those houses. Just lean on the wall back here, okay? And if anyone comes near that door, just… I don’t know. Confuse them. Distract them.”

Jongin frowned. “Sneak in?” he asked. “Are you… are you _stealing?_ ”

“Shh, by the Creators, keep your damned voice down,” Tao hissed. “I’m _working_. Just trust me.” He held Jongin’s gaze. “Will you do that for me?”

Unease sloshed inside him, but Jongin nodded. What else could he do? He _needed_ Tao.

Smiling brilliantly, Tao squeezed his shoulder and melted away into the shadows. Jongin leaned against the wall, as he’d been told, and tried not to look suspicious.

He got a few moments of uneasy silence, pretending he was inspecting his nails so that he wouldn’t have to meet the hostile, judging gazes of the elves around him. He was head-and-shoulders taller than anyone else in the district, and stood out like draft horse at a pony show. Why did Tao think it was a good idea to leave him to keep watch?

_Just leave._

Jongin frowned at his nails. What? No. He wasn’t going to just leave Tao.

_He thinks you’re useless anyway, or else he would have brought you in there with him. It’s all over his body language, it’s right there on the surface of his mind. You’re not anyone’s burden, Jongin, you don’t need him. Leave him behind._

“I was wondering when you would really get going,” Jongin murmured under his breath. “You want to isolate me, so that I will be easier prey. I’m not falling for it.”

Frustration in his mind. _I can’t stand watching you follow him like a loyal dog,_ Ardor growled. _There is an entire world out there, and you have more than enough power to set yourself up in it with anything you want. You can do anything, be anything. And yet you are here, playing the accomplice to a street thief who would run from you - or condemn you - if he knew about me. It’s pathetic._

“You don’t have to hang around in my mind, you know,” Jongin retorted, trying not to think about what Tao would do if he found out about Ardor. The thought was… more than a little disquieting. “You could just leave me alone.”

_Not going to happen. You need help, you’re practically_ screaming _into the Void for guidance. Well, here I am, but I can’t guide you if you don’t listen to me._

Seeing that passersby were looking, Jongin stepped back a little bit, around a corner and into the shadows. I will not listen to a demon. I would kill myself before I would let you use me to hurt others.

Heavy internal silence. _...You really don’t remember, do you? I thought you were just being obtuse, but you don’t remember what we talked about, in the Fade._

Shouting broke into Jongin’s attention before he could process that, or formulate an answer. Startled, Jongin looked up.

He saw silverite plate and froze, sucking in a breath. Five templars marching into the alienage, fully armed and armored, and at the front of them was Karras, beady dark eyes and dirty blond hair.

Panic rose like bile in Jongin’s throat, and he ran, down several houses and around a corner into a barely-sheltered little alcove. The entire Alienage was carved from a wide clearing in the cliffside that had almost certainly once been part of the quarries; there was nowhere to hide. Sheer cliff walls with tiny, shabby homes built into them surrounded him on all sides.

The Templars came in with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer, calling for the elves to turn over the apostate at the top of their lungs. The elves themselves were hurrying off the streets, shutting themselves into their hovels in the hopes that the Templars hadn’t yet seen them.

A couple of the elves met Jongin’s eyes as they passed. Jongin knew they had to guess he was the one the Templars were looking for - how long before one of them gave him up to save their community?

He had to get out.

_Fight them,_ Ardor whispered. _I will help you._

No. Jongin was not an idiot. The only way Ardor could hope to defeat five Templars would be by taking Jongin over completely, erasing his mind and his soul and twisting his body into a terrifying monster. Jongin would never allow himself to become an abomination - even Tranquility was better than that.

_Kill them all, and destroy your phylactery. Then you’ll be free!_

“The penalty for harboring a blood mage is death!” Karras’s hated voice scraped over Jongin’s nerves like a steel rake on stone pavers. He heard a thunk, and then a much quieter voice pleading for mercy, and frantically looked around. Where could he go, where could he hide? Could he climb, or go down a sewer?

“You! You’re human, what are you doing here with all this rot?” Jongin froze, listening wide-eyed. The voice that protested Karras’s snarling question was female, and terrified. “You an elf-fucker, then? Got a bunch of little half-blood bastards running around? Disgusting.”

A cold hand closing around his wrist made Jongin jump, swallowing a shriek. He whipped around.

There was a part of him that expected Tao to be behind him, but it wasn’t Tao. It was a young elven woman, dark-haired and green-eyed, with distinctive facial tattoos marking her as Dalish, not city-born.

“Come on,” she whispered, and tugged his wrist.

Too frightened and confused to do anything else, Jongin let her drag him along. They didn’t go far - around another corner, in a hidden alcove, there was a sewer grate. The woman lifted the wooden trapdoor and shooed him down the ladder.

Once the trapdoor closed over them, they could still hear the commotion, but it was muted, far away. Jongin slumped against the damp stone wall, his fear draining and leaving him weak.

“Now, don’t get too cozy yet,” the elf said. She had a very Dalish accent, soft and lilting. “They’ll think to look down here eventually. Follow this path, and it’ll let you out into the Undercity. It’s much easier to hide down there.”

“Thank you,” Jongin whispered. “I can’t repay you.”

“Oh, that isn’t at all necessary!” She beamed at him. “I would go with you, but… Well, I tend to get lost more often than I get where I’m going! Just run along, quick, while you still have some time.” She glanced at the trapdoor above. “Terrible business. I don’t blame you for running away.”

“Won’t you get in trouble, if they realize…?”

“They won’t, don’t you worry about that.” She flapped her hands at him. “Go on, shoo!”

He went, turning to wave when she called out “Good luck!” after him.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Everything was exactly as Charade had told him it would be. The occupants of the house were out, the loose floorboard was under the bedroom side-table, and the box was dusty, but untouched. Tao carefully put everything back exactly the way he had found it, tucked the tiny box into his belt-purse, and left.

Upon exiting the house, Tao heard yelling, arguing, fearful mutters. Immediately wary, Tao shut the door behind him and melted into the shadows next to the buildings. People were hustling to get off the streets, keeping their heads down, staying out of the way. Tao had to sidle around the wall so he could see past the vhenadahl tree and find out what the commotion was about.

Templars.

Five of them, grabbing residents off the streets, surrounding them, questioning them. And in the lead, the big one with the unfortunate blond mutton-chops from the night before, the one who had been looking for Jongin.

Wait. Where was Jongin?

Tao looked around frantically. Jongin was nowhere to be seen. But the Templars wouldn’t still be questioning the elves if they had already gotten him, so he was probably safe. The question was, where?

An older elven man hit the ground, silver-white braids falling in his face as a younger woman - his daughter, maybe? - screamed for the templars to stop. 

Tao hesitated, wondering for a moment if he should do something. Templars could sometimes see through his illusion, but perhaps if he provided some kind of a distraction...

The elven woman had managed to get the Templars to leave her father alone, but they had already moved on to forcing through doors and searching homes. The elderly elf was bleeding in the street, and he wasn’t the only one.

No. Tao was fast, and his knives were deadly when used right, but he was probably not a match for any one of those Templars, let alone all five of them. All it would do would be to paint a target on his back. Besides, it would be safer for Jongin if this Templar didn’t know Tao’s face, right? Better than Tao be able to pass right by, and the Templars never know that he could lead them to their prey.

And it was his fault Jongin had been here in the first place. His fault that Jongin was in danger.

Staying deep in the shadows, Tao sidled along the buildings, looking in every nook and cranny. It was no use - Jongin was gone.

So Tao made himself gone, too, slipping away right in front of the Templar’s noses and ignoring the pleading for mercy from behind him.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The sun was setting behind buildings carved into the cliffside, casting the dirty stone in shades of pale gold and red. Already the shadows were long enough to cover the streets, and Jongin hurried to stay out of the way of the crowds, trying not to make it obvious that he didn't belong here.

_Why are you so worried? You could kill every one of these people with a wave of your hand. They should be afraid of_ you.

“I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet,” Jongin muttered to the voice in his head, “but I am _not a killer._ And I am not going to let you turn me into one.”

Except that he’d killed Maxine. Oh, Maker.

_I'm not going to just take you over, you know,_ the demon told him. _If that was what I wanted, I would have already done it._

Jongin wasn't really sure what to think about that. On the one hand, he was almost certain the demon was telling the truth, and could overpower him at any time. The idea was terrifying in an exhausting way, waiting to be made prisoner in his own skin at any moment.

On the other hand, though, Jongin had never heard of a demon just… waiting. Why not take Jongin over? What was it waiting for? He had no answer, except that maybe, just maybe, it somehow _couldn't._

_You have a high opinion of yourself, little mage._ Ardor sounded amused.

Jongin really didn't, but he could find no other reason why the demon hadn't destroyed him yet.

He had left the Undercity and was now walking the streets of what Jongin assumed must be Lowtown. It _looked_ like Lowtown, but this was still only Jongin’s second day outside of the Gallows, and he really didn’t know the district well enough yet to know for sure.

_You’re here. Tao’s tenement is here._ A map appeared in his head, incomplete but clear enough to follow. Suddenly, Jongin knew where he was.

He stopped, right in the middle of the street, and stared at nothing. Did he… trust Ardor? Was the map correct, or was the demon trying to lead him astray again, in a literal way this time?

_Oh, for - Jongin. I have every motivation to see you indoors in the one place where you know you will be safe. What nefarious deed could I possibly be trying to commit?_

Begrudgingly, Jongin started walking again, following the map in his mind. “I wish that elf had come with us,” he mumbled. “At least she was nice.”

Internal laughter, low and incredulous. _She was incredibly dangerous. You couldn’t smell it?_

This time, Jongin did not stop dead in the middle of the street in confusion, but it was a near thing. “What?”

_Power. A huge amount of it, and not all of it of your world, either. The Fade clung to her like leeches after a swim. She smelled of demons, Jongin._

Demons? “But she was so…” He gestured vaguely, thinking of concepts like cute, gentle, bird-like.

_So many preconceived notions. You have a lot to learn._

“Not from you,” Jongin mumbled, and picked up his pace, hurrying through the streets.

It turned out the map was accurate after all. _Of course it was,_ Ardor said, _I made it from your subconscious memories._ Jongin found himself in a familiar looking alley, at the bottom of the rickety wooden staircase that lead up to Tao’s door.

Except his door was not there. The wall at the top of the stairs was solid stone brick.

“Maker’s bloody balls,” Jongin grumbled. He was almost completely certain this was the right place - which probably meant the wards on the door completely hid it from sight when activated. Jongin wouldn’t be able to get in without Tao.

Figuring it wasn’t safe to just hang about in this alley until Tao got back, Jongin turned to head back into the street, thinking he would loiter in the shop downstairs for a while.

He stopped. Stared.

Setting sunlight glinted off of golden-blond hair, turned dark amber eyes the color of flame. No armor, but the sword and the shield were immediately recognizable.

“Jongin,” Sehun said.

_Oh hello there,_ Ardor murmured, silky. _Who is this?_

Shut up, Jongin thought, his heart pounding. Sehun took a step forward, and Jongin took one backward, glancing around frantically.

“Jongin, hey. It’s just me.” Sehun reached out, his gauntlet creaking as he unfurled his fingers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

_Ooh, you believe him. That’s so interesting. You know why he’s here, don’t you?_

Shaking his head, Jongin willed Ardor to just _shut the fuck up._ “I’m not going back,” he said. His voice cracked, which was humiliating. “I _can’t_ go back, not after what I - ”

Sehun’s stoic expression flickered, which meant he was _really_ upset. “Yes, you can,” he said, very firmly. He took another step forward, and this one felt a little more threatening. “Jongin, please. If you turn yourself in, if you just tell them you didn’t intend to - ”

“To what?” Sehun stopped talking, but Jongin took a step forward of his own. “To _what?_ To murder Maxine? I _didn’t_ intend to, but I _did it._ ”

_You’re not going to blame me?_ Ardor asked, curious.

No. If the Templars found out he was possessed, he would be killed or made Tranquil, immediately and without trial. There would be no mercy for him.

_Oh, I see. Carry on._

“If it was an accident, then you should definitely come back. We can just explain - ”

“Sehun, _listen to yourself,_ ” Jongin snapped. “You think Meredith is going to accept ‘I was startled’ as an excuse for Maxine’s death?” He shook his head. “No. I can never go back. _They will kill me._ ”

“Don’t do this,” Sehun snapped, and his always-steady voice broke, revealing the pain and conflict underneath. Jongin winced. “I can’t let you go, I can’t let you run free after what you did. Come back with me willingly, _please._ I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ardor hummed in Jongin’s head. _He cares about you a great deal,_ it observed. _But he’s serious. He isn’t going to let you go, he’ll drag you back screaming if he has to. You’re going to have to fight him off._

Jongin’s blood ran cold, even as sparks began to jump between his fingers.

No. Not Sehun. He couldn’t do it.

_Then let me,_ Ardor said, oh so reasonable. _Just let go. I’ll handle it for you._

“Never,” Jongin said, clenching his fists to swallow the lightning back into his body.

Sehun had already seen it, though, and his hand went to his sword, even as his eyebrows compressed. He _didn’t_ want to hurt Jongin, and Jongin knew it.

But Jongin also knew that Sehun was faithful to the Templar Order. He would do his duty.

Jongin stumbled back several paces, looking frantically around, but it was a dead end and he had nowhere to go.

_Jongin, you’re being ridiculous. I won’t hurt him, I promise you. All you have to do is let me in._

“Don’t do this, Jongin,” Sehun said. His sword made a soft, metallic hiss as he drew it, flashing in the setting sunlight. It was a big sword, heavy, but Sehun held it like it was an extension of himself.

Something Jongin had always admired, up until now.

Jongin threw up his hands, pushing a disorientation spell out of his body and hurling it at Sehun. It was one of the gentler entropic spells, but he hoped it would cloud Sehun’s mind long enough for Jongin to run.

Sehun brought his shield up with a smooth, instinctively fast movement, catching the spell before it could connect. The magic bounced off, harmless.

_Oh,_ Ardor murmured, as memories of watching Sehun in the training yards flashed through the back of Jongin’s mind. _Jongin, you can’t - You’re going to_ lose. _Let me in._

No. Fuck off, demon. I won’t let you take Sehun. Jongin took a deep breath and brought up another spell, a much stronger one - fear. He was _good_ at fear, something that he’d always found to be shameful, but he needed it now.

He flung the fear out, aiming low this time. As he’d hoped, Sehun instinctively guarded his face, and the spell hit him right in the knees, zipping up his body in a visible flash of light.

Sehun shuddered, faltered - then shook it off. Jongin’s eyes widened.

_You can’t be serious. He’s trained specifically to hunt mages, and he’s_ good _at it._ Ardor was starting to sound panicked, pressing against the insides of Jongin’s mind. _Jongin, let me handle this, it’s the only way we’ll get away from him!_

An image of Maxine’s still, lax features flashed through Jongin’s mind, and he clamped down on his mental defenses with everything he had.

Never.

Not Sehun.

Ardor snarled its frustration in Jongin’s mind, and Sehun was advancing, but Jongin could not fight Ardor back and get away from Sehun at the same time. Frozen in place, wide-eyed, he watched his friend advance.

Pressure shoved at the inside of his head, threatening to break him, to overwhelm him. Ardor was _roaring,_ furious at being caged. Jongin collapsed to his knees, pressing both hands to the sides of his head as if that could help him hold the demon back. 

Muddy black boots appeared suddenly before him, literally out of thin air. The surprise was enough to still Ardor’s struggle, and Jongin looked up, wide-eyed.

“Leave him alone,” Tao said.

Sehun looked as startled by this turn of events as Jongin was. “Who are - nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Move, friend. This man is a wanted fugitive and an apostate, it is my duty to take him back to the Gallows.”

Tao’s stance spread, just a tiny bit. “I don’t think he wants to go, _friend,_ ” he said warningly.

Dark golden eyebrows raised. “Why do you defend him?” Sehun asked, sounding genuinely curious. “He is a killer.”

Oh, hearing Sehun say that _hurt._ Jongin winced, fearing that Tao would turn on him, but Tao didn’t move - he only laughed, sharp and without humor. “Maybe you’re not aware,” Tao said, “but half of this city are killers, including me. If you cannot claim the same, it only means you haven’t been carrying that sword for long enough.”

Sehun’s jaw dropped, and he took a menacing step forward, seeming to grow larger in his anger. “You _dare_ \- ” 

An arrow embedded in the cobblestones just in front of his foot. Sehun stopped short, looking around frantically, but with the shadowy height of buildings all around them, it was impossible to tell exactly where the arrow had come from.

“Careful, Ser Knight,” Tao murmured. “The walls of Kirkwall have eyes.”

Sehun’s eyes narrowed, and he adjusted his grip on his shield, raising it a bit. “I will not let Jongin leave here,” he said, resolute. “I _cannot._ ”

Tao cocked his head. “You will leave, or you will die.”

“No,” Jongin gasped, and scrambled to his feet. “Tao, no, don’t hurt him. Please.”

Glancing back at him, Tao put a hand out, pushing Jongin behind himself. “You know him, then?”

“Yes, yes, I - Just don’t hurt him. Let’s just go, please?”

Sehun spread both stance and weapons, taking up as much space in the narrow alley as he could. “Jongin…” 

Oh, that look of betrayal cut Jongin very, very deeply. “I’m sorry, Sehun,” he whispered. “If it was Starkhaven, I would go back with you. But Meredith…”

“I can vouch for you. I’ll protect you, I swear it.”

Jongin had to laugh, then. It sounded ugly. “I believe that you would try,” he said, and left it at that. He tugged on the back of Tao’s tunic, signalling him.

Tao curled his arm back, placing his hand flat on Jongin’s hip. “Don’t try to come after him,” he warned Sehun. “I will know, if you do.”

Then, the air around Jongin _twisted._ Sehun’s eyes widened, and Jongin realized that Tao had done that thing again, where he seemed to become part of the shadows, and dragged Jongin in with him as well.

The whiz of an arrow cut through the air, bouncing off of Sehun’s shield. Instinctively, Sehun shied back, raising his shield over his head to block the second arrow, and while he was distracted, Tao tugged Jongin forward. They raced past Sehun to the street.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin gasped as they passed. Sehun started and turned, eyes tracking to try and find where they had gone, but it was too late. Tao pulled Jongin down a different alley and out of sight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual references: [Charade](https://78.media.tumblr.com/ecc5f8da781535eb6d1622695cb81e14/tumblr_menpahnc6T1r1hjuro1_500.jpg), [Kirkwall's Lowtown](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/f/f3/Lowtown_Act1.jpg/revision/latest), [Kirkwall's Alienage](https://78.media.tumblr.com/b36a1df80c7519426506d934b60138eb/tumblr_mjizkzCK9u1rb9pewo1_r1_500.gif).
> 
> [I drew a sketch of City of Chains Tao!](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee/status/983123409751105537)
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee).


	3. Chapter 3

Sehun was visibly angry enough as he stalked through the halls of the Gallows that a pair of younger mages actually pressed themselves against the walls to get out of his way, averting their eyes fearfully. He calmed himself a bit after that, shoving his rage down, hidden.

In his quarters, he divested himself of his sword and shield, and took the time to splash some water on his face from the basin and to take a deep breath.

He’d failed today.

Maxine was dead. Jongin was gone, on the run, not only away from the Circle that was meant to protect him but in the arms of that - that _criminal_. Tao, Jongin had called him. Whoever he was, he was almost certainly an awful influence on Jongin, who Sehun knew was easily influenced.

Shit. He couldn’t stand the thought of Jongin out in the city like that. He’d looked so fucking _scared,_ so terrified he could barely even cast a spell. Sehun was angry at him, furious at him for turning on the Templars who protected him and for running away, but now, he also ached to bring Jongin home, to see him back in these halls where would be safe. Where he belonged.

Jongin was afraid, but he didn’t have to be. Sehun would protect him.

“If I am to consider myself worthy of the Templar emblem,” Sehun told himself in the mirror, “I have to do better. No more mistakes.”

Easy to say, less easy to do. Sighing, Sehun changed into his vestments. It was week’s end, and his duties called.

As he headed down the halls, familiar steps fell in line with his own. “Rough day?” Baekhyun asked.

“That’s one way to put it,” Sehun grumbled.

His former roommate, a broad-shouldered, tawny-haired young man considerably shorter than Sehun himself, put a hand on Sehun’s shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. “I’m sorry about Jongin,” Baekhyun said, keeping is volume low. “I know how much he meant to you.” Sehun didn’t answer, so Baekhyun squeezed him one more time and let his hand drop. “You can kick my ass in the yards later, if that would make you feel better.”

It made Sehun’s lip twitch, at least. “Thanks for the offer,” he said. “Hey, you don’t happen to know who’s been assigned to Karras’s hunting party next week, do you?”

“Sure, the duties roster was posted just after dinner. Which you missed, I noticed.” Sehun didn’t comment on that. “I’m not assigned to him, and neither are you, I’m afraid. Karras hand-picked his team.” He rolled his eyes expressively.

Sehun blew out a breath. “Of course he did.”

Further conversation was stymied as they entered the chapel and took their places, Sehun with the knights and Baekhyun with the recruits. Though they were a similar age and close to the same level of skill, Baekhyun was not permitted a full knighthood until he had served out a ten-year probation, for reasons that all involved had refused to explain. Sehun hadn’t asked - it was Baekhyun’s business, and none of his.

Sehun settled into parade rest amongst the ranks, watching as Knight-Commander Meredith and Knight-Captain Cullen climbed the stairs and knelt before the golden statue of Andraste.

The sermon, the prayers, the recitation washed over Sehun, as it had every week’s end for the last six years, but Sehun couldn’t make himself focus. His thoughts were a mess, hopping around between anxiety, anger and guilt; even the familiar verses of the Chant couldn’t quiet his mind. 

“Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter,” Sehun intoned with the rest, the words so familiar as to be meaningless. “Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.” It was all Sehun could do not to fidget or squirm, itching to get out of there and go do something about his situation. “Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written.”

As the voices faded, Meredith stood and turned. “Before the allotments are dispensed, I have an announcement to make.” Sehun looked up, surprised by the deviation from the usual pattern. “As you are by now all aware, we recently lost one of our own. Services for Ser Maxine will be held in two days’ time, when her family arrives from Ostwick.”

Closing his eyes briefly, Sehun exhaled, and attempted to calm the rising wave of nausea and sorrow.

“The mages under our care have also lost one of their own.” Meredith’s tone hardened, and Sehun straightened, focusing on her. “Apprentice Jongin turned on us all the moment he emerged from his Harrowing, with such power and viciousness that I have been forced to conclude that he must have been practicing blood magic in secret. Even now, he continues to evade capture, to the extent that we must believe that he is shielding himself with forbidden magics.”

She let that sit for a moment, before raising her volume to echo off of the walls. “I name Apostate Jongin a maleficar.”

There was silence, but a palpable wave of surprise flowed through the Templars present, knights and recruits glancing at each other to gauge reactions. Sehun remained frozen, horror in his heart.

“The search will begin first thing tomorrow. Rest assured that this criminal will be brought to justice.”

Oh, why couldn’t Jongin have just _listened_ to him? Sehun didn’t believe for a moment that Jongin was using forbidden magics, but convincing Meredith of that was going to be difficult, especially after Jongin ran. If Jongin had returned willingly, Sehun could have vouched for him. Protected him. That might not be possible any longer.

“Maleficar rarely operate alone,” Meredith continued, her volume rising still more. “There may be more blood mages hiding amongst the Circle. Anyone, from the Senior Enchanters down to the youngest magelings, could be corrupted. We must be _vigilant!_ ” Her sudden shout startled several of the Templars. Sehun’s hands had clenched into fists at his sides, in lieu of jumping in alarm. “For the mages’ own protection, we will be increasing surveillance.”

She paused, possibly for dramatic effect. Forcing his expression to remain neutral, Sehun waited to hear the rest.

“You may have noted, if you have already checked the duties roster, that the number of Templars assigned to each post has been doubled. Your shifts will be extended to cover this.” Meredith’s icy eyes scanned over the ranks. “Work together. Check each other’s notes, and watch each other’s backs. If there is any sign of blood magic, be it a corrupted mage or one of our own that has been pulled under a mage’s influence, it will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.” She folded her hands behind her back. “We will need all of you in absolutely peak condition. Curfews will be strictly enforced, and there will be extra training yard time scheduled for everyone.”

Another pause. Meredith’s volume lowered, only just clear enough to be heard in the echoing chapel.

“Now, I know that this will be a strain on you all. Your days are already long and thankless. In anticipation of this, I have secured an extra dose of lyrium for each of you for this week. Use it wisely.”

Sehun blinked, surprised. What?

In the echoing silence that followed, Meredith gestured to the Knight-Lieutenants, who obediently filed up to the altar, beginning the weekly reception of allotments.

The line seemed to take even longer than usual. Sehun forced himself to be patient, to not shift in place or turn to ask the knights next to him what they thought of their Commander’s unexpected decree.

The lyrium that gave Templars their powers was expensive, dangerous, and highly regulated. It was a truth generally unspoken, but universally acknowledged, that the Andrastian Chantry used it both to augment and to leash the Templars, to keep them both useful and loyal. Lyrium doses were very carefully measured and distributed, to the point where if a Templar broke or lost their phial, they were required to suffer through the week without it, rather than being given another. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience - Sehun had been through it twice in the four years since he had taken his vows, and hoped to never go through it again.

To give a second dose to _every_ Templar in an entire company was completely unheard of. The situation must be far more dire than Sehun had thought, to warrant such a decision.

When it was finally his turn, Meredith handed Sehun his little glowing blue phials, murmuring a blessing. Two of them. They clinked together softly as she pressed them into Sehun’s hand, small and heavy. The lyrium-song rang in his head, two slightly different, dissonant notes, soft but unmistakable.

“I know you have taken Jongin’s betrayal to heart, Ser Sehun,” she said, quietly enough that only Sehun could hear. “Rest assured that he will be brought to justice. I promise this to you.”

She squeezed his hand. Exhaling, Sehun took the comfort along with the lyrium, and tried to smile. He knew the Templars would find Jongin, he just had to trust that they would be merciful.

Meredith patted his shoulder and let him go, and Sehun stepped down from the dais.

Cullen grabbed Sehun’s attention as he was leaving the chapel. “A word?”

Sehun turned, and Cullen leaned close. “Don’t take them both in the same day,” he murmured. “And don’t take them directly before bed. Trust me.”

He didn’t wait for Sehun to answer before striding off, leaving Sehun blinking in confusion in his wake.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao had dragged Jongin around to another alley a few blocks down, up a ladder that was bolted directly into the cliffside, and across the roofs, back to the roof above Tao’s place. There was a trapdoor on the roof that appeared only when Tao approached it.

There was also a woman holding a bow, tucked away in the shadows near the chimney. Silently, she gestured to the trapdoor, and Tao let them all in.

The woman followed, putting her bow up as she dropped catlike beside Jongin in Tao’s messy, cramped abode. “Hi there, cutie,” she said. “I’m Charade.” She stuck out a hand.

Jongin shook her hand tentatively. “I’m… um...” He glanced at Tao, hesitant.

“You can tell her,” Tao called, as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it into a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. “She’d never rat you out.”

Biting his lip, Jongin decided to trust Tao’s judgement on that. After all, the woman had helped to hold Sehun back, and without hurting him, even. “Jongin. My name is Jongin.”

“Oh, the apostate from Starkhaven! That explains it.” Charade went to the lardor and pulled out a basket of apples, as if she lived here. “How’d you fall in with this rascal? And what was all that with the strapping young Templar out there? He seemed much too invested for you to just be a hunting assignment.” She tossed an apple to Jongin.

Tao plucked the apple basket from her hands, leaving her only with the one she had been about to bite into. She pouted. “Leave him alone,” Tao said. “He doesn’t need to be caught up in your gossip train.” Pulling something from his belt, he held it up in front of her. It looked like a small, carved wood box.

“Oh, you got it! Great, thank you so much. Arianni will be so pleased. Her son left this behind when he left, and she forgot - ”

“I don’t care,” Tao said patiently. “Pay me.”

“Sour britches.” Charade pulled out a small cloth coin purse and dropped it in his hand. “There, are you happy now?”

Tao’s smile was brilliant. “Always lovely doing business with you, Charade. Now get out of my house.”

Charade went, patting Jongin’s shoulder as she passed. “Good luck with this one, Jongin. Don’t let him take advantage of you, he’s only a bastard when he wants to be.”

She disappeared up the trapdoor, leaving Jongin feeling a bit like a whirlwind had just blown through. Clutching his apple, he collapsed onto the floor and dropped his head into his hands.

A heavy thud heralded Tao plopping down next to him, and a crunch filled the air. “You have quite a fuck-lot of Templars coming after you, my friend,” he said through his apple.

Jongin peeked out from between his fingers. Bare, golden skin over thick, toned muscle greeted his vision first, and then questioning black eyes under long, loose black hair that hung down well past his shoulders. Jongin attempted not to whimper, a combination of attraction and embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pathetic. “I’m probably more trouble than I’m worth.”

Inside his head, Ardor sent him the impression of the longest, most frustrated sigh ever uttered. Jongin scowled, knowing Ardor was doing that on purpose.

“It’s certainly made my life colorful,” Tao said dryly. “Do you expect it will continue, or will they give up eventually?”

“They won’t stop,” Jongin said miserably. “All Circle mages have their blood taken for a phylactery when we’re children. Templars can use them to track us. I’m certain that’s how they found me, and they’ll keep hunting me with it for the rest of my life.”

For a long moment, Tao just stared at him. “They take your _blood_ to create your _leash?_ ” he asked incredulously. “And then when you dare to try to leave, they hunt you down like an _animal?_ ”

“It isn’t an unreasonable precaution.” Jongin snapped. “Mages are _dangerous,_ and not all of them are content to live within the protections necessary.” He scrubbed a hand through his messy hair. “Magic is a weapon, and one that is not always well-controlled. I could kill you with a literal _thought._ ”

Before Jongin could blink, Tao’s fist was balled in his shirt, and there was a knife at his throat. He froze.

“It takes a bit more than a thought,” Tao said, soft and stern, “but I could kill you just as quickly as you could kill me.” His face was… very close. Jongin swallowed heavily. “Magic is a _tool,_ Jongin, no more or less evil than this knife. Don’t buy into the Chantry bullshit.”

Jongin felt a delighted little shiver inside his mind, a soft voice that was not his own whispering yes, yes. Fighting that back, he didn’t move until Tao released his shirt and lowered the knife.

Ardor had… _liked_ that. Why?

“So that’s why you can’t leave the city?” Tao asked, as if that little death threat hadn’t even happened. “Because out there, it’ll be even easier for them to use that thing to find you?”

Jongin sighed, and tried to calm his pounding heart. “Yes. I’m trapped. If I stay here, I’m an easy target, close by and difficult to hide. If I run, I’ll be an even easier target, alone out in the open.”

_So you steal the phylactery, and you destroy it. And then you will be free._

“That’s crazy,” Jongin said reflexively. “I can’t just go steal the phylactery.”

Tao frowned. “Steal it? Is that even an option?”

Jongin’s eyes widened. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “I can’t - it’s the Gallows! It’s heavily guarded, and the phylactery vault is barred.” But even as he was saying it, the idea was sticking in his mind. He’d been away from there not even two days and the Templars had already found him - or nearly found him, anyway - three times. “But… if I want to ever make a life for myself, I have to get rid of it,” he realized.

“Then set a trap for the next Templar who comes after you,” Tao said reasonably. “Ambush him, lightning him to death, and take the damn thing.”

“I don’t want to _kill_ anyone!” Jongin cried.

There was a part of him - a shamefully _loud_ part - that said that killing Karras would be revenge, would be _justice._ But the larger part of him wanted nothing to do with murder, already horrified by the deaths he’d caused the day before, however accidental or justified.

Maker, had it really only been a day since his Harrowing?

Tao didn’t look impressed. “Death happens,” he said. “Death happens a _lot_ in Kirkwall, if you hadn’t noticed. If it’s not slavers or apostates or Templars, it’s street gangs or Coterie or the Carta. Everyone in this city is out for themselves.” He raised an eyebrow. “If they actually did find you, they’d be as likely to kill you as take you back, and you know it. And as long as I am sheltering you, they’d legally be free to kill _me,_ too.”

“I just need to get the phylactery,” Jongin said desperately, and there was an echo in his voice, odd and distant, as if Ardor was speaking along with him within his mind. But the words were his own, he was sure of it. “I need to destroy it. I can never go back, so my only path is forward, and as long as the phylactery exists it is a noose around my neck that will get tighter the further I try to go.” He put a hand on Tao’s arm. “Will you help me? I don’t think I can do it alone.”

_You won’t be alone,_ Ardor whispered, but Jongin ignored it.

Tao’s heavy, dark brows were compressing. “I don't know, Jongin. The Gallows is a target I’ve never scaled. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk, especially when you know the phylactery will come to you if you just wait long enough.”

_No. Sooner is better._

“Karras had four other Templars with him today,” Jongin said, with a fervor in his voice that surprised even him. “I can’t take on five Templars, not when they’re specifically out and expecting ambush. Half of a Templar’s threat is with their armor, their shields and swords - how many times can I evade them, before they get the better of me? I was lucky today, nothing more.”

Tao frowned, obviously considering that.

“If I catch them in a place they think they are safe, when they are unarmed, I am much more likely to be able to stun them and get away.” Jongin could see a plan forming itself in his mind, built out of his knowledge of the Gallows and his deep, deep desire to never again have to run for his life or rely on the kindness of strangers to hide him. “Phylacteries are kept in the vault when they are not being actively used. If we go late at night, we might be able to get in, destroy it, and get out without having to hurt anyone, without even being _seen._ ”

“We?”

“I - it will only work if you come with me,” Jongin admitted. “I need your ability to walk in shadow. Please, Tao.” He shifted so that he was kneeling, directly in front of where Tao was sitting, and put his hands on Tao’s knees. “Please. There’s other treasures in the vault, you can take whatever you want.” He bit his lip. “I… I _need_ you.”

“Gods all be damned,” Tao grumbled. “Just - yes, okay, alright, I’ll do it, just stop with the face. I can’t handle it, it’s like looking at a dog you kicked by accident.” He put his hand on Jongin’s shoulder. “I’ll help you. _Tomorrow._ We will need to do some serious planning, and I don’t know about you, I am knackered.”

Jongin smiled, a real smile, for the first time since he’d gone into the Harrowing chamber. “Thank you, Tao,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

Tao’s cheeks reddened, ever so slightly. He mumbled something about cooking a real dinner, and got up, leaving Jongin on the floor.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The morning shift was a long one. Sehun was stationed in the library, one of the more boring assignments, made even more boring by the fact that there were four Templars assigned to the shift rather than the usual two.

The mages of the tower were clearly unsettled by the increased presence, as well. Apprentices constantly looked over their shoulders, and the Enchanters who were teaching them moved with uncharacteristic stiffness; fearful looks and hushed whispers flew.

It didn’t help that some of Sehun’s compatriots were clearly not handling the doubled lyrium dose very well. Sehun himself had followed Cullen’s advice and not taken the second dose when he took his first that morning, and Baekhyun, technically only a recruit, was not yet allowed to take lyrium at all. But the other two on duty with them, Verne and Paxley, were twitchy and on edge, so much so that at one point, Sehun actually had to get in between Verne and a mage named Alain, when the mage’s quill-tapping as he studied had set the Templar off on a very uncharacteristic temper tantrum.

Near the end of Sehun’s shift, Alain rose to leave, casting furtive, worried glances at the Templars. Sehun took it upon himself to escort Alain back to the mage’s dorms before reporting to training. He’d always liked Alain, who was one of the Starkhaven transplants, a few years older than Jongin and so like him in looks and voice that Sehun had once mistaken them for siblings - tanned skin, full lips, dark hair worn soft and loose. Alain thanked him with such relieved sincerity that it made Sehun’s heart flare with guilt. The mages were so fearful right now, afraid that Jongin’s actions would have consequences for them all. It was unavoidable, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

They were up the stairs and nearly to the mages’ dorms when a sharp, high-pitched shriek sounded from somewhere above them. Both Sehun and Alain froze, staring at each other.

“That came from upstairs,” Sehun realized.

Alain’s eyes went even wider. “The apprentices,” he gasped.

They both turned and raced for the stairs.

The apprentices’ dorms were above the Harrowed mages’ dorms, divided up by age and gender. Sehun and Alain raced towards the screaming and the sound of fighting, which, to Sehun’s absolute horror, was coming from the preteen girl’s dormitory.

Normally, neither Sehun nor Alain would be allowed in here, but with screaming like that, neither one of them hesitated. Sehun kicked the door in.

There was an abomination in the middle of the room.

Half again as tall as Sehun, flesh twisted and raw like skinless muscle, with the tattered remains of a mage’s robe hanging loose around its waist, the abomination turned to face the noise and snarled.

Quickly, Sehun took stock of the situation. There were four girls between the ages of ten and thirteen huddled in the corner behind a shaky, flickering arcane shield that the eldest of them was attempting to hold. The guards on duty in this dorm were both on the floor - Moira was bleeding heavily and attempting to regain her feet, Rosalind was unmoving.

The abomination had almost certainly been one of the children. Pushing the horror of that temporarily from his mind, Sehun raised his shield and advanced, hoping that the poor thing had not been taken by a very smart demon, and that maybe he could keep its attention. In the corner of his eye, he saw Alain sliding around the edge of the room, trying to get to the girls in the corner.

The abomination swung. A powerful strike, but wild, uncoordinated; Sehun caught the claws on his shield and threw it to the side. It was a risk, because it opened his front up to attack, but it also forced the abomination to open itself in the same way. Into the opening, Sehun struck, his sword biting deep into the abomination’s side.

As if the wound was nothing, the abomination wheeled and hit Sehun hard across the shoulder. Sehun flew across the room and into the wall, bouncing off and just barely missing landing on Moira. It took him a long moment to shake himself out of his daze, and in that moment, the abomination turned back towards the apprentices.

Alain was already there, standing between the girls and the demon with a much stronger arcane shield over them all. He was a strong, well-practiced mage who was good at shielding, but no shield could hold forever; they needed help! Sehun scrambled to his feet and charged at the demon’s back.

It didn’t occur to Sehun that he’d never fought an abomination solo before. It never even crossed his mind. All he could think was that he had to keep its attention away from the mages, keep it on the defensive, keep it from claiming any more lives than it already had. He ended up standing between Alain and the abomination, focusing hard on defense, refusing to take any more risks than he already had. The demon was so close to the children, if he fucked up and let himself get thrown again -

A shout. The abomination wheeled around, putting its back to Sehun, and Sehun raised his sword to strike, but he didn’t need to. An enormous greatsword, blackened metal glowing with red sparks from the rune forged into the blade, cleaved the abomination from shoulder to waist.

Silence. The demon fell, lifeless, and Knight-Commander Meredith yanked her blade from the corpse. Heaving a relieved exhale, Sehun let his sword and shield fall limply to his sides. “Commander,” he said. “Thank you.”

She shook her head, dismissing his thanks. “What happened here?” she asked, sharp.

At least one of the girls behind Sehun and Alain burst into horrified tears.

Meredith seemed to decide Alain was better equipped to handle that, and turned instead to Moira, who was on her knees next to her partner, feeling for a pulse. Her hands came away bloody, her eyes glassy. Sehun knew without her saying it that Rosalind was dead.

“Rage demon, I think,” Moira reported, sounding numb. “It was Apprentice Delilah.” Sehun closed his eyes in horror - Delilah had only been eleven years old. “She was arguing with one of the other girls, I don’t know about what - ”

“A child’s tantrum should never be strong enough to attract a demon, not unless the demon was already plaguing the child or had been summoned to the area,” Sehun pointed out.

Meredith shook her head. “More blood magic, it must be,” she muttered. “Some mage was meddling in power they didn’t understand, and a child paid the price. We _will_ find them, and they _will_ be punished.” She wiped demon guts off her sword and re-sheathed it. “Alain, see to Ser Moira. Ser Sehun, return to your post. I’ll send the Tranquil up to clean this mess.” She strode out of the room.

Alain moved to do as he was ordered, kneeling next to Moira to heal her wounds. “I’m sorry about Rosalind,” he said. “You two were close.”

“It happened so fast. Shit.” Moira closed her eyes, tears leaking from the edges.

Sehun turned away, dropping to one knee in front of the four terrified girls he had been guarding. “Hey,” he said, keeping his voice soft, unthreatening. “Is anyone hurt?”

The eldest of the four nodded, and pushed the smallest of them forward. “Janey’s arm is broken,” she said.

Fuck. Internally, Sehun cursed himself for not getting here faster. “Take her over to Alain, alright?” he said. “You did great, you protected all of them. I’ll make sure the First Enchanter knows what you did.”

She nodded and took her roommate carefully by the shoulders, guiding her over to where Alain was working. Sehun took the other two girls’ hands and led them from the dorm and down the hall to the dorm suite belonging to the eldest apprentices, three young women in their late teens and early 20’s. He knocked, and quickly explained what happened, turning the two girls over to them. 

Then he started down the stairs, alone. Shaken.

It was a rare occurrence, an abomination in the dorms. Very rare. Unless a mage was practicing blood magic or specifically summoning demons, the only real risks of possession were in the Harrowing chamber, which was guarded and girded exactly for that reason.

But this was the third abomination this year. That was three too many. Sehun put his hand over his chest, where the locket was hidden under his armor.

Was Jongin really a blood mage after all? Was he the one summoning demons, weakening the Veil and putting children at risk? Sehun couldn’t believe it.

Or maybe he just didn’t _want_ to believe it.

Normally, Sehun had either a duty shift or combat training each day. Today though, as per Meredith’s decree, he had both. And so, even after the nasty fight he’d already been in, Sehun was forced to drag his already tired body down to the training yards and into the ring.

Combat training was never a pleasant evening stroll, but that afternoon, it was _particularly_ grueling. Not only had he not slept well and was already exhausted, but his opponents had universally and unusually high fervor.

Every strike with the blunted practice swords was like a sledgehammer, shaking him to the bone even through his armor. Every wave of power rattled his teeth, smashing through his usually solid mental defenses. Sehun ate dirt half a dozen times, something that hadn’t happened since he was a green recruit.

As the Tranquil overseeing the ring declared the last match concluded and his opponent the winner, Sehun dragged himself back to his feet yet again, and forced himself to admit that not taking his second lyrium dose was a mistake. Literally every other knight was performing at a level he couldn’t touch, not without the edge that his extra allotment would give him. He wasn’t sure which was worse, that the officers might realize he hadn’t followed orders, or that they might _not_ realize, and would think he was just weak.

At least Meredith was too busy to observe the training yards today. That was a small comfort.

“Fereldan!”

Sehun looked up. There were only two Fereldans in the Templars of Kirkwall, and no one would dare speak to Cullen in that tone of voice, so he didn’t have to question whether the epithet was aimed at him.

Three Knight-Lieutenants were entering the training grounds, steps in sync - Ser Mettin, heavy-set and ginger; Ser Agatha, black-haired and stern; and Ser Karras. Karras was the one who had called out, and he was the one who stepped all the way into the ring, fully armored and sword in hand.

Sehun eyed him warily as he forced his exhausted body to attention. “Knight-Lieutenant,” he said, with much more respect in his tone than he felt. He’d never much liked Karras, who had a reputation for meanness amongst knights and mages alike, but the man was an skilled warrior and a superior officer, besides.

“What was that, knight?” Karras asked, jerking his chin at the now-empty rut in the dirt where Sehun had last fallen. “That was pathetic.”

He wasn’t wrong, so Sehun accepted the admonishment with a clenched jaw and no response. He didn't bother explaining that he'd already tired himself out fighting a _real_ danger that afternoon - it wasn't an excuse.

Karras snorted. “Arm yourself.” Sighing, Sehun moved into a ready stance, holding up his heavy, clunky practice shield, his blunted practice sword. Karras sneered at him. “No, nugbrain. _Arm yourself._ ”

Murmurs, from the knights that had gathered to watch. Sehun glanced to the side and saw Baekhyun wide-eyed on the sidelines, with Ruvena, Paxley and Hugh, all knights that Sehun had trained beside, all looking shocked. Taking a deep breath, Sehun flashed them a reassuring look, and went to get his actual sword and shield.

“You can’t be serious.” That was Thrask, a brightly red-headed Knight-Lieutenant, striding up to get into Karras’s face. “Ser Sehun has already fought four matches in an hour, it isn’t safe to - ”

Ser Mettin cut him off, stepping in between Thrask and Karras. “Demons don’t wait for you to rest, Thrask,” Mettin said, as Karras smirked behind him. “Blood mages don’t show mercy. Desperate apostates would take advantage of this knight’s weakness, and you would have us just let it pass without correcting it?”

Rolling out his shoulders, Sehun stepped back into the ring. “It’s fine, Thrask,” he said, resigned. Two frowns turned on him - one framed by orange stubble and one by a neat, flame-red goatee - and two sets of lyrium-blue eyes regarded him with different types of reproach. Sehun distantly wondered if his own eyes, currently amber-brown, would turn glowing blue after decades of lyrium use. It might even look good on him.

If he lived that long.

Karras’s eyes were not blue, but he was a good decade younger than Mettin or Thrask. He was also a good decade _older_ than Sehun, and had half a head more height and at least a third more body weight, most of it muscle. Sehun had sparred with him twice before and gotten thrashed both times, but it had been a few years, so maybe he wouldn’t get completely shattered this time around.

He re-assessed his chances of that when he approached Karras in the ring and saw the veins standing out in the man’s neck, snaking up the side of his face and disappearing under his blond mutton-chops. They were so blue they nearly glowed, and Sehun realized, just a little too late, that he might be in trouble.

Karras came at him with the force of a hurricane, shield first and with a holy smite behind it that was so strong, Sehun was already knocked off his feet before the shield even connected. It was all he could do to twist in the air and hit the ground hands-first, and the air was knocked out of him so completely that for a precious second, he could not move.

Then he heard someone on the sidelines yelling, and the air above him rushed, and Sehun found the strength to throw himself into a sideways roll, getting out of the way just as Karras’s sword came down right where his head had been. He reared back and kicked out, hitting Karras’s shield with the heels of both boots, a strike that would have knocked a normal person flat.

Karras absorbed the hit as if it was nothing, but it did force him to raise his shield for just long enough for Sehun to finish rolling away and up onto his feet. Knowing the minute distraction was probably more than he could hope for, Sehun pushed through the pain of the already-developing bruises from the fall and charged.

Sehun knew that his only advantage over Karras was dexterity, so he came at the larger man with his best technique, quick, precise jabs that aimed to get around the man’s guard. But Karras was fast - too fact, _inhumanly_ fast. Every jab was expertly parried, as if Sehun’s strikes were slow as a new recruit’s.

Shoving with his shoulder right inside Karras’s guard, Sehun tried for a disarming strike, locking his sword’s crossguard into the crossguard of Karras’s and twisting. On anyone else, the sword would have gone flying - Sehun had even disarmed _Cullen_ once with it - but Karras’s grip was like iron, refusing to give even with the leverage Sehun exerted. Sehun pushed with all his strength, but even with a fresh dose of lyrium singing hot in his veins, he couldn’t come close to overpowering Karras.

With a sharp twist of his wrist, Karras reversed the grip, locking Sehun’s sword with his own. He bore down, forcing Sehun’s hand back, until the choice was let go of his sword or break his wrist. Gasping, Sehun abruptly let go, let the momentum of Karras’s strength knock him momentarily off balance as the sword clattered to the ground. He let the power of the movement fuel his momentum and spun the other direction, lashing out with his shield into the opening Karras left in his guard.

His shield connected squarely with Karras’s forehead. Unaffected, without even _blinking,_ Karras struck out, so fast that his armored fist blurred. Sehun heard the crunch first, before he felt his nose sliding out of place, before the heat of his own blood flowed over his mouth. Then, the pain hit, and Sehun cried out and stumbled back, using every ounce of his will and strength just to stay upright, to not drop his knees.

He needn’t have bothered. Karras swung his shield like a scythe, taking Sehun’s legs out from under him. Sehun went down. His shield was kicked out of his hand, his wrist pinned flat under a metal-clad boot. His head was spinning, and he nearly couldn’t see Karras’s sword raise, let alone get away.

“That’s _enough!_ ”

The roar was accompanied by a shadow over Sehun’s head and the clang of steel on steel. Sehun struggled to focus past the intense pain blooming in his face, but eventually the image coalesced.

Knight-Captain Cullen was standing over him, with Karras’s sword caught crosswise on Cullen’s own. Cullen shoved, and threw Karras just enough to make him stumble, to take a few steps back. “This training session is over,” Cullen snapped. “To your duties or your quarters, all of you. Now!”

More or less obediently, the watching knights turned away, throwing glances over their shoulders and murmuring amongst themselves. Sehun pushed himself back, crawling out from under Cullen’s spread stance, and fought to get to his feet.

A strong arm pulled him up. “Can you walk?” Cullen asked. No pity, no reproach, just a practical question. Sehun was grateful for that. He nodded.

The only knights who were still near the ring were Baekhyun, Mettin and Karras himself. Karras spat on the ground at Cullen’s feet. “A dog lord protecting his bitch,” he sneered.

Sehun stiffened at the ethnic slur - and the implication - but Cullen somehow managed to not react. “Attend to your duties, Karras,” he ordered, steely.

Karras and Mettin left. Cullen looked to Baekhyun, who was still hovering around, looking concerned.

“What part of ‘to your duties or your quarters’ was not clear, recruit?” Cullen asked, but his tone was less hard now.

Baekhyun snapped his heels together and saluted. “Knight-Captain. I thought someone should escort Ser Sehun to the healer’s.”

“And you thought that warranted refusing a direct order? Alright, nevermind. See that he arrives safely and is fully healed, I want him fit for duty by morning. Clear?”

“Yes, ser!”

“And you,” Cullen said, more quietly, “stop picking fights when you’re going to get trounced.”

Sehun spat blood from his mouth so he could speak. “With all due respect, ser,” he said, “Karras picked the fight with _me._ ” His voice sounded nasal and choked, distorted by his broken nose. Speaking was painful.

Golden-brown eyes narrowed. “Did he now,” Cullen murmured. “I see.” He pulled away. “Get some rest tonight.”

With that, he strode off, leaving Baekhyun to help Sehun through the halls to the healer’s office.

They were silent on the way. Sehun could walk, but it hurt to do so; it felt like every part of his body was bruised, like his armor weighed three times what it normally did. The pain in his face was starting to make him nauseous, and he fought that back, knowing from experience that puking with a broken nose was a terrible, terrible time.

At least someone had had the foresight to put the healer’s office on the first floor of the Gallows, just inside the main gates and around the corner.

Yixing was on duty tonight. Sehun knew this was usually Alain’s shift, so he must have been relieved of duty after the ordeal this afternoon. Sehun didn’t mind much - Yixing was a good healer, and sweet-natured, a relief after the brusqueness of his fellow Templars. He was a Dalish elf, or he had been before being brought to the Gallows, but he’d assimilated easily, nothing left to hint at his previous life but the branch-like tattoos on his face and the partially shaved undercut style of his black hair.

Yixing didn’t ask what had happened, he just pressed a pain-relieving spell to the side of Sehun’s face and then softly requested that he remove his armor so he could get a sense of the damage. Baekhyun helped him out of the armor, not commenting on how stiff Sehun’s movements already were. Sehun appreciated them both, for that.

Yixing sat Sehun down on the cot, now clad in trousers and undertunic only, and cupped his hands on either side of Sehun’s face. “This looks nasty,” he commented. The brogue of his Dalish accent had been worn down after years in the Circle, but it was still there. “What’d you hit, a brick wall?”

“Felt like it,” Sehun muttered, as light from Yixing’s hands filled his vision. “But I’ve had worse.” He fought to keep still as his nose set, clicking painfully back into place, and then went through weeks of bruising and healing in a matter of seconds. The rest of his body went much the same way - small fractures and sprains set, bruising sped up, days or weeks worth of healing in just a few minutes. It hurt, a _lot,_ but it was over quickly. A small price to pay, to get his health and mobility back.

He had little to do for those long minutes while Yixing worked, but to relive the fight in his head and fume. Karras had made him look a fool, and worse, Sehun knew it was the lyrium in his veins giving him that power, not any inherent talent or strength of his own. Not taking the second dose had clearly been a mistake, one he would have to remedy first thing in the morning. He’d never taken two doses so close together, but others obviously had, so how bad could it be?

Soon, he was healed, and there was no pain left - only a bone-deep exhaustion that he would have to sleep off. He thanked Yixing genuinely, and went to the washbasin to rinse the blood from his face, as Baekhyun, behind him, struck up a soft conversation with the mage.

Huh. Sehun had known Baekhyun for six years now, and he’d never heard that tone of voice from him, not ever. Looking up into the mirror, Sehun watched as Baekhyun actually shuffled his feet, glanced shyly at Yixing, and asked some question about… sword oil?

Yixing’s response was too soft to hear, but his smile was secretive, flirtatious, almost wicked. Baekhyun flushed and looked very pleased with himself, long fingers trailing down the side of Yixing’s forearm.

Going back to his task, Sehun bit back a smile. How long had _that_ been going on? Well, good for them. Mages and Templars were forbidden from romantic relationships, but Yixing was a good man, and a good mage, the first mage whose Harrowing Sehun had attended. He’d passed in only two hours, coming out of the Fade looking exhausted but triumphant. The entire Circle had celebrated, Templars and Mages alike toasting to the newest addition to their ranks.

Happier times, those.

Sehun was buried face-first in a damp towel when he felt a sudden burst of heat against his sternum. He stilled, confused, and his hand automatically raised to his chest, where he felt his locket beating like a heart under his tunic.

Jongin.

Fear and adrenaline raced through his veins, forcing the exhaustion back. Jongin was _here?_ Had he been found? No, Karras had been here for hours, he wasn’t out hunting.

So Jongin must be returning for something, and Sehun knew there was only one thing it could be. Only one thing that was worth the risk.

Dropping the towel, Sehun quickly buckled his sword-belt back on and grabbed his shield, leaving the healer’s office without a word. He had to find Jongin, and it had to be before Karras or anyone else did. Meredith had named him a maleficar, a blood mage, dangerous and vile. If someone else found Jongin first...

No. That wouldn’t happen. Sehun would make sure it didn’t.

He reached into his belt-pouch and pulled out his second lyrium phial, small and blue. Normally, he would use his philter kit to dilute the dose, and take it slowly, over the course of an hour.

He didn’t have time for that now.

Uncorking the phial, Sehun tipped the glowing lyrium directly down his throat.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Unlike the main body of Kirkwall, the Gallows had been built on a small island, separated from the rest of the city by a narrow waterway. Back in the days of the Imperium, the fortress had been used to intake, organize, and break in slaves from all over, before they were sent to work in the nearby quarries. Every inch of the Gallows, from its spiked iron fencing, to its high, foreboding walls, to the statues of tortured slaves that adorned its courtyard, was designed to frighten and cow.

The Gallows had been the home of the Circle for much longer now than it had been the heart of the slave trade, but the name had never been changed, the spikes never softened, the statues never taken down. Jongin had always thought that was... telling.

The fortress’s bloody history was a boon to them now, though, because the Gallows had been built to keep people _in,_ not to keep them out. It was much easier than Jongin had expected for them to sail from one of the Undercity docks to the back of the fortress and land out of sight. The boat they used apparently belonged to Charade. She promised to wait for their return and cheerfully waved them off, turning away to handle mooring the little skimmer.

The back of the Gallows was stone brick, rough despite the seawater that clung to it. There was a parapet-lined walkway above the second floor, which Tao seemed to think would be easy to get up onto. Jongin, who had never climbed anything in his life, was less certain. But as Tao checked the hold of their grappling rope and showed him how to use it to climb, Ardor slid across his consciousness, rubbing like a cat. _You can do this. I am with you._

Power poured into his body, making him flex his hands restlessly and turn his face away, fearful that Tao would see his eyes glowing. He didn’t like accepting the demon’s help, but he really wasn’t sure he’d make it up the wall without it, and he _had_ to get that phylactery. So he took a deep breath, balled his hands up in the rope, and started up the wall.

Even with the extra strength Ardor lent him, even with the sureness with which the demon guided his feet, it was a struggle to pull himself so far, and when Jongin finally went over the parapet he all but collapsed on the cold stone, chest heaving and arms burning. Smug with pride, Ardor retreated from his body, and Jongin watched in awe as Tao nimbly scrambled up the wall after him. Now that he knew just how hard that really was, seeing Tao make it look so easy was… Compelling.

_Sexy. The word you’re looking for is sexy._

“Please shut up,” Jongin muttered under his breath, as Tao dropped to the stone, pushed his salt-sprayed hair from his face, and flashed an exhilarated grin. Jongin’s gaze caught on Tao’s glitter-wet skin. “Maker’s _breath._ ”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jongin hoped his exertion would cover his heating cheeks. “What now?”

Tao pulled the rope up and the hook off the wall, balling it up in his hands. “You said the repository was on the bottom floor, right? So we won’t have to go through all of the living space on the upper floors?” Jongin nodded. “Okay, so let’s go over the plan again. You’ll lead, I’ll watch your back. If we need to get past guards, I’ll pull you into the shadows with me. If someone sees us, you’ll push fear into their minds and make them run away.” He shoved the grappling rope in a shadowed corner nearby to await their return. “The goal is to get in, get the phylactery, and get out without anyone knowing we were there, but failing that, without getting captured or killing anyone. That about sum it up?”

Jongin exhaled. “Yes. Yes, that’s the plan.”

Tao gestured. “Lead the way, then.”

Getting into the Gallows was easier than expected, but getting down to the repository was not. The halls were busy tonight, busier than Jongin had anticipated. They bolted from shadow to shadow, holding their breath as mages and Templars passed. Eventually, they managed to get down to the ground floor without being seen.

Jongin pulled Tao into a room he knew would be empty, an herb storage closet. It was a small space, and they had to duck under the bunches of drying elfroot and spindleweed hanging from the ceiling. Tao set his hands on Jongin’s hips and dropped his head to Jongin’s shoulder, catching his breath. Jongin let his own hands rest on Tao’s shoulders, heartbeat flying with fear and exhilaration.

He was so, so thankful that Tao was with him. He would not have had the bravery to do this alone.

“So far, so good,” Tao muttered, nearly voiceless. “Only two more floors to go, right?”

Jongin nodded. “It’s possible we should have waited until later at night,” he said breathlessly. “I just thought, noises might be more obvious in silence…”

“No, it was a good thought. Guards are always more on the lookout for things out of the ordinary late at night.” Tao straightened, and his eyes drifted upward, towards the top of Jongin’s head. “I haven’t gotten over how good that looks,” he admitted, a non-sequitur.

Blushing, Jongin ran a hand through his newly cropped hair. Since he wasn’t looking at it, he kept forgetting about it. He wondered, if he was seen, if he would even be recognized. As long as he didn’t speak and kept his face in shadow, maybe not.

“Two more floors,” Jongin said. “Let’s go, and get out as quick as we can.”

Tao grinned and grabbed his wrist, and they snuck back out into the hallway.

Getting across the first floor to the basement stairs was a trick. More than once, they passed a mage who Jongin was certain was going to see through Tao’s little shadow trick the way Jongin himself had. But nobody did. Tao had assured him that it was very hard to see through if the person looking didn’t know what they were looking for - Jongin had been able to see through the illusion only because he had been looking right at Tao when Tao had disappeared.

Then, Karras went past.

Jongin froze, unable to force himself to move. Karras was in full armor, and there was - oh, Maker, there was _blood_ on his gauntlet. And he was _laughing,_ laughing at something Ser Mettin said, a hideous, twisted sound, that brought up memories in Jongin’s throat like bile -

Tao yanked him back against the wall, out of the way of the advancing officers and into a shadow cloak. Not expecting it, Jongin stumbled and fell against him, and the noise made both Templars stop and look around.

Tao wrapped his hands around Jongin’s back and they both held their breath. Jongin was trembling, he knew he was, but he couldn’t stop himself.

_The man from your nightmare,_ Ardor murmured in the silence.

Jongin didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

After a moment, the Templars’ conversation resumed, and they walked past without so much as a glance. Jongin refused to move until they were down the hall, around the corner, and their footsteps could no longer be heard echoing in the halls. When they were completely gone, he deflated, all but collapsing into Tao’s arms.

“Shit,” Tao whispered. “Are you alright?”

Jongin’s breath was coming in shuddering gasps. “Y-yes,” he said, unconvincingly. “I’m fine.” He forced himself to pull out of Tao’s grasp, to stand on his own feet. “Let’s go, we need to keep going.”

They made it to the stairs, and down to the second subfloor. It was quieter down there, but Jongin moved warily. He’d never been down here before - apprentices were not permitted.

“Oh, hello,” Tao murmured, backpedalling to a door with a barred view-window set in it. Deep blue light shone on his face, pulsing. “That is a _lot_ of lyrium.”

“Tao,” Jongin called softly.

A frown. “Actually… that is an _enormous_ amount of lyrium. The cost of just one of those crates could feed me for a year.” Tao glanced up at him. “Do Templars seriously go through this much, or do they just stockpile it?” Jongin just gestured frantically. “Alright, fine, I’m coming.”

They reached the end of the hallway, and the huge, heavy, barred double-doors that Jongin assumed must lead to the phylactery repository. “Right,” he said. “Help me with this.” Tao came to his side, and together, they put hands on the door bar and lifted.

It did not move. It didn’t even _wiggle._ They kept trying, wedging their shoulders under the bar, but still, nothing.

A little help, here? Jongin asked.

_My help will be of no use,_ Ardor said. It sounded annoyed about that. _This is not about physical strength. The magic in this place is very old, very strong._

“Shit, we can’t move it,” Tao realized.

“You probably should have thought of that before you got all the way down here.”

Tao and Jongin whipped around in unison, and knives appeared in Tao’s hands, so fast that Jongin nearly didn’t see him draw. At the other end of the hall was Sehun, stalking towards them. He was mostly in shadow, but Jongin knew it was him - knew his voice, his silhouette, his gait.

Something inside Jongin relaxed, even as something else tensed. “I’ve not exactly had reason to come down here before,” he shot back, looking around for a possible way out. The repository was at a dead end; they would have to get past Sehun to get back up the stairs.

Sehun came into range of the lanterns on the walls near the door. Candlelight outlined his form, and Jongin gasped, stepping back.

He was not wearing his armor, though he was carrying his sword and shield. His undertunic was sleeveless, and in the reddish light Jongin could see his veins standing out, crawling up his forearms and pulsing over the crests of his biceps, snaking up the sides of his neck. His blood glowed blue under his skin, his pulse so heavy that his heartbeat was visible even from this distance, too fast and strong. His grip on his sword was white-knuckled.

Jongin had never, ever seen Sehun like this before. He looked like an avenging spirit - or a monster.

Fear and lust slammed into Jongin like a wave. The fear was his own, but he was pretty sure the lust was not; Ardor was _moaning_ inside his mind, driving Jongin to take a step forward even though he was terrified.

Tao’s hand on his wrist kept him from moving forward any more. “Don’t suppose you want to give us the secret code, friend,” Tao asked lightly, even as he pulled Jongin behind him and stepped between them.

Sehun’s voice was just a shade too deep, too resonant. It shuddered through Jongin’s chest. “The door can only be opened by the cooperation of a Templar and a mage,” Sehun growled. “You will not be getting in there, thief.” He was still advancing, and as he got closer, Jongin began to hear a faint sound in his mind, an oddly buzzing chime. Lyrium song. Jongin had never heard the lyrium sing in a Templar’s blood before; he’d only ever heard it when he himself had to take it.

Tao stepped forward to meet Sehun halfway, keeping himself between Sehun and Jongin, while Jongin fought with everything he had not to let Ardor push him forward and directly into Sehun’s arms. Ardor was _screaming_ with want, responding like a slavering dog to the lyrium pulsing through Sehun’s veins, and it was making it very hard for Jongin to even feel his own fear, let alone act on it.

“What a lovely coincidence that we have a Templar and a mage right here,” Tao said softly, and there was a threat in his voice, veiled but unmistakable.

Sehun stepped right into Tao’s space. He didn’t raise sword or shield, he wasn’t armored, but he seemed larger than was natural, made of rock, unmovable. “You think you will force me?” he snarled. His voice was _wrong,_ too deep, and his face twisted with fury. Jongin whimpered aloud, and Ardor whimpered inside his head, for two very different reasons.

Brandishing his knives, Tao grinned his animal grin, the one that looked more like a threat than an expression of humor. “If you don’t cooperate, I certainly will.”

“Tao, _don’t_ -” It was too late. Sehun lashed out, so fast his blade blurred.

To Jongin’s surprise, Tao actually blocked the strike, catching Sehun’s sword with his knives and deflecting it just enough to the side. It forced him to step back, and Sehun pressed the advantage, driving him backwards with fast, heavy strokes that Tao only barely avoided. Jongin yelled in alarm, forgetting to keep his voice down.

Then Sehun caught Tao by the collar, fisted in the hand that held his sword. He planted his shield flat against Tao’s stomach and hips, and _heaved,_ lifting Tao straight up into the air as if he weighed nothing.

Sehun turned. Tao went flying over Sehun’s head, crashing into the wall of the hallway, several lengths behind them. Dazed, Tao slumped to the floor.

Jongin was leaping forward before he fully processed what he had just seen. He reached out and caught Sehun by the elbows, pulling him back, keeping him from going after Tao.

The moment his skin made contact with Sehun’s, a shock of power jolted through them both. Sehun slammed him into the wall, completely instinctive - Jongin _knew_ better than to catch him by surprise when he was fighting. Lyrium-infused skin under Jongin’s hands heated to burning, and he gasped, knees buckling, as white-hot power invaded him.

He reached up, intending to push Sehun away, but his hand wrapped around the back of Sehun’s neck instead. Jongin reached again to push, to get free, but his hands acted outside his control, yanking Sehun flush against his body. Surprised, Sehun’s grip loosened, and Jongin’s tightened.

Too late, he realized his body was not under his own control anymore.

_“You burn,”_ Ardor said through Jongin’s mouth, distorting his voice to something unworldly. Sehun froze, wide-eyed and horrified. There was green light reflecting off his face, and Jongin distantly realized it must be from his own eyes. _“It is too much for you to bear.”_

The anguish in Sehun’s eyes cut Jongin straight to his heart, flaying him open. “Jongin,” he whispered. “Maker, no. Not you, please, no.”

In his mind, Jongin _screamed,_ but Ardor pushed him back. He felt his own tongue brush against Sehun’s neck, delicately tracing out his jugular vein, glowing blue. The lyrium sparked, spicy-sweet, like wine under Sehun’s skin, and Ardor _shuddered_ inside Jongin’s mind, forcing its lust for the power in Sehun’s veins to manifest physically in Jongin’s body - dry throat, hot skin, stomach twisting in painful knots and cock hardening rapidly against Sehun’s hip.

Sehun’s grip firmed, pushing until he’d forced a bare inch of space between his body and Jongin’s. He was _strong,_ but Ardor was stronger. “Unhand me, demon,” he whispered.

_“Shh.”_ Ardor wrapped both hands around Sehun’s biceps, stroking thumbs over the crests. Its lust was overwhelming, and Jongin screwed up all his will to keep from losing himself in it. _“Let me help you.”_

“Don’t _touch_ \- ” He stopped, shuddering, as his skin flared with light. Inside Jongin’s mind, Ardor moaned. Not out loud, thank the Maker for small favors.

_“I won’t hurt you, knightling,”_ Ardor murmured. In the corner of his eye, Jongin could see the blue light of the lyrium’s power crawling out of Sehun’s skin and up Jongin’s wrists. It burned, it sang, loud and jangling in Jongin’s mind. _“And you won’t hurt me, will you? If you wanted to, you already would.”_ It shuddered with Jongin’s body. _“You have more than enough strength.”_

Jongin was horrified to realize Ardor was right. Sehun was so flush with the lyrium’s power, he could rip Ardor right out from Jongin’s body and destroy it. He might not even find it difficult.

Sehun was panting. “That would kill Jongin,” he ground out.

Ardor smiled with Jongin’s face. Jongin was sure he didn’t want to know what that looked like. _“Any other Templar would do it,”_ it taunted. _“Why won’t you?”_ It pushed forward, closing that inch of space that Sehun had fought for, pressing the entire length of Jongin’s body to Sehun’s.

More than the power flooded into Jongin’s system, then. For a split second, he could _feel_ Sehun, every single thing about him - not just his body, but his fear, his rage, the blinding, choking insanity of the lyrium in his veins.

And buried under that, sorrow and despair. He thought that Ardor’s existence meant Jongin was dead, and he _despaired,_ with a depth and passion that took Jongin’s breath away.

Let him go, Jongin pleaded. Ardor, please, don’t hurt him, don’t!

_I am not hurting him, little mage,_ Ardor said, and Jongin shouldn’t believe its soothing tone, but oh, he _wanted_ to. _But we need his help, and as you can see, he would never willingly give it._

Ardor moved Jongin’s hands up to either side of Sehun’s face, tilting it down so that their eyes met. _“My sweet knight,”_ it crooned, its voice more like Jongin’s than like Ardor’s. It was a lie; Jongin was not speaking. _“Please help us to open the door.”_

Sehun fought it. He fought it with every ounce of his will, Jongin could _feel_ him fighting. Desperate, unable to think of anything else to do, Jongin reached out with his consciousness, and tried to connect with Sehun’s.

It worked. Sehun stilled, eyes widening, as Jongin wrapped himself carefully around Sehun’s mind. I’m sorry, he said, directly from his own mind into Sehun’s. I can’t be running for my life forever. Please don’t make the demon force you. Please help us.

It was enough. Sehun’s resolve cracked, and Ardor seeped in through that crack, taking him over. His eyes flashed green, the same Fade-energy green that Jongin’s were. Ardor moved backwards, and Sehun let them go.

Jongin’s body and Sehun’s turned towards the door, both puppeted by the demon, and put their hands on the bar. With both of them, the spell deactivated and the bar lifted. Sehun set the bar aside, and Jongin opened the door, revealing the vault behind it.

Ardor went straight for the rack of phylacteries. They knew which one was Jongin’s, it called to them, glowing in their vision with the light of his own magic.

Using Jongin’s hands, Ardor snatched the phial up, threw it to the floor, and smashed it under their boot, leaving a stain of blood that had been taken from Jongin’s veins as a child of six years old.

Turning, they met Tao’s eyes. He was leaning on the doorframe, clutching his side and glaring. “How about you give us Jongin back now?” he snarled, speaking directly to Ardor.

To Jongin’s surprise, Ardor did exactly that. It retreated, pulling back out of Jongin’s limbs and letting Sehun go, falling back into the depths at the back of Jongin’s mind. Jongin abruptly found himself back into his own skin. The sudden release made his knees buckle.

Strong hands caught him.

“Jongin,” Tao said urgently. “Jongin, are you with us?”

“I’m here,” Jongin gasped. “Sorry, I’m sorry, the lyrium song was too much, I couldn’t fight - ” He looked to the side, where Sehun had fallen to his hands and knees, gasping for air. Without thinking, he pulled from Tao’s arms and crawled over to Sehun, grasping his shoulders. “Sehun! Are you alright, did it hurt you?”

A warm palm cupped his cheek and turned his face up. “Jongin,” Sehun murmured, sitting back on his heels, his brow furrowed down into his nose, panting and confused. “How - You’re still - ”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jongin babbled, clutching Sehun’s wrist, leaning his cheek into Sehun’s touch. “I couldn’t stop it. I never wanted to hurt you, please be alright -”

Skin slid away from skin, blue and purple power sparking between them as their connection broke. Tao was dragging Jongin to his feet, pulling him away from Sehun. “We have to hurry,” he said urgently. “Someone’s coming, we have to go _now._ ”

Jongin met Sehun’s eyes. He had a hundred things to say; none of them would come out.

“Jongin!”

A calloused hand wrapped around his wrist. Jongin let Tao pull him into the shadows, keeping his eyes on Sehun the whole time.

He didn’t think Sehun would let them go, but he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual references: [the Gallows](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/2/25/Gallows.jpg/revision/latest), a Templar's [lyrium kit](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/a/ac/Cullen%27s-Lyrium-Kit.png), an [abomination](http://codex-da-world.3dn.ru/abomination.png), [Alain](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/4/4d/Alain_portait.png/revision/latest).
> 
> [Baekhyun](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jXUt1HGkszBssW6SzAmN0DYcLiTXVPZu), [Yixing](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BH5Ax6ib7fGmK1z4NH9yOlT9EVNe8KWj).
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you like ambient bg noise: [Hightown market](https://fantasy.ambient-mixer.com/hightown--kirkwall) (I mute channels 3 and 6 personally)

Sehun crashed to his knees in the officers’ lounge. A rough hand shoved at the back of his head, and he tensed up hard to keep from falling forward onto all fours. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him crawl.

The broken pieces of Jongin’s phylactery dropped to the wood floor in front of him.

“What the _hell_ do you have to say for yourself?!” Karras snarled.

Sehun didn’t actually know what he could say, so he kept silent, his thoughts spinning against the cloud of the lyrium high in his mind. Should he tell them that Jongin had broken in and destroyed it? Should he say he was knocked out and didn’t know what happened? Should he tell the truth, all of it, and deal with the consequences?

He didn’t know. Agatha was behind him, binding his wrists together, while Karras and Mettin stalked around him like wolves, and the lyrium was still singing through his blood, making it hard to hear himself think, to figure out which course of action was best.

“Well?!”

Sehun glared, and pinned his lips shut. Snarling, Karras backhanded him across the face, heavy rings crashing into his cheek and leaving a long cut that Sehun could feel begin to bleed.

“I’ll break your nose again if you don’t talk, Fereldan bitch,” Karras snapped. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you? Couldn’t fucking beat me in the ring, so you resorted to sabotage. Pathetic.”

“Oh no, that’s not it,” Mettin said, more calmly but no less threatening. “Karras, you don’t pay enough attention. I saw the way he looked at that apprentice, before this happened. This isn’t about _you._ ” 

Mettin leaned over, his gaze piercing into Sehun’s, eyes like shards of crystal in his weathered face, all but glowing with years of lyrium use.

“Were you fucking him, Sehun?” he asked, his voice oozing with implications. “Were you crowding him into corners and shoving him to his knees? Holding his hands behind his back and pressing his face into the pillow so he couldn’t cast, couldn’t scream?”

Horrified, Sehun opened his mouth, but nothing came out. How could - how _dare_ \- what kind of fucking _sick_ \- 

Mettin smiled, a twisted gash of an expression. “Oh, I see. You wanted to, but you didn’t, did you? Too cowardly to take what you wanted. And now he’s gone, and you don’t want anyone else to find him first.”

“How did you get into the vault, Sehun?” Agatha asked from behind him, all business. “It requires a mage and a Templar, so who helped you?”

Another question Sehun couldn’t answer. If he told them Jongin had been there, then he was a traitor working with a blood mage; if he didn’t, they would cast around until they found some other mage to blame, to punish. There was no good answer.

Footsteps entered the room, armored and heavy. Who was still wearing full armor at this time of night?

“Ser Sehun.”

Sehun’s face drained. Meredith.

She came around his back to his front, nodding as the three lieutenants leapt to attention. “I’ll take it from here, sers,” she said. “You’re dismissed.”

They left, leaving Sehun alone with his commander. She cocked her head, one hand resting on her enormous, red-sparking sword.

“I do believe we have some things to discuss.”

Sehun took a deep breath, raised his eyes to meet the icy lyrium blue of his Commander’s, and braced himself for pain.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao shut his front door with a bang, pulling the locks closed and activating the wards with a sharply muttered command word. “You might have told me that you were spirit-ridden,” he grumbled.

No answer. Tao turned, and found Jongin kneeling on the floor in the middle of his tiny living space, head bowed, hands shaking. His hair was too short now to hide behind, so Tao had a clear view of the anguish on his face.

“You shouldn’t have brought me to your home,” Jongin whispered. “You should just kill me. Before I hurt someone else.”

“Oh, bloody fucking - get _up._ ” Tao hooked his hands under Jongin’s elbows and yanked him up onto his feet. Shocked, Jongin stumbled, bracing himself on Tao’s shoulders. “You haven’t hurt _anyone_ tonight. Stop acting the martyr.” He went to divest himself of his leather armor, moving stiffly. His entire body was one huge fucking bruise after that - that _monster_ had thrown him across the Creators-damned _room._ What the hell was that Templar even made of?

Jongin’s head stayed bowed. He looked to be on the verge of tears.

“You might also have told me you and he had a thing, you know,” Tao snapped. He felt a fool - he didn’t like being blindsided. “How can you expect me to trust you if you’re keeping all these secrets?”

It had the intended effect - Jongin forgot his self-sacrificing angst and got indignant instead. “I’m not - there isn’t a _thing!_ ”

Dropping his pauldrons to their home on the floor next to the door, Tao snorted. “Please. You were lost the moment he appeared. Your lust practically scorched my hair off.”

Jongin’s face flamed with embarrassment. “That was Ardor’s lust, not mine,” he mumbled.

“Spirits don’t feel lust,” Tao pointed out. “They don’t have any emotions at all. They just magnify their host’s.”

Jongin’s gaze jerked up to him in surprise. Tao finished pulling off his armor, grabbed a potion from his stash, and pulled Jongin over to sit on the floor-cushions. He’d pulled his half-healed side open when he’d hit the wall, it was bleeding sluggishly.

“Jongin,” he began, trying for earnestness in his tone for once. He wasn’t the best at serious conversation, but this one needed to be held. “You’ve grown up in a Chantry-controlled country, in Chantry-controlled Circles, under the thumb of the Templars. You’ve known nothing else, your whole life. I get that.” He downed the potion, and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “But you have to understand that the Chantry is made of people, just like any other organization is made of people, and sometimes, _people are wrong._ ”

Fronwing, Jongin opened his mouth to argue. Tao cut him off before he could speak.

“I won’t argue with you about the Maker, or about Andraste, or the First or Second Sins or any of that. I’m not here to debate the veracity of the Chant. But listen… the Chantry’s views on spirits? They need work.”

“Demons,” Jongin said. “Not ‘spirits.’ _Demons._ ”

“And _that’s_ exactly what I’m talking about!” Tao shifted, crossing his legs under him. His body already felt better, and some of his anger had drained away with the pain, leaving behind little except a desire to make Jongin understand. “The Chantry has literally demonized anything that is not of the material world. Magic, the Fade, the spirits that existed long before humans ever appeared. These things do not follow the Chant, and therefore they must be evil, yes?” Jongin pursed his lips, and Tao sighed. “Spirits of the Fade are neither good nor evil, Jongin. They are, at most, the magical manifestation of an _idea,_ and an idea cannot be inherently evil.”

Jongin shook his head. “I have seen demons eat a mage from the inside out,” he said, voice low and starkly serious. “I have seen good men and women turned to depravity and violence, I have seen monstrosities burst from their skin and manifest. Do not tell me demons _don’t exist._ ”

“Of course demons exist,” Tao said. “But if whatever is in you was _actually_ a demon, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation, because you would be dead.”

That seemed to get the point across. Jongin blinked, the thought stopping him cold.

“Ideas can be dangerous,” Tao conceded. “Spirits are easily corrupted. Easily taken to extremes.” Jongin was obviously agitated, upset; Tao wished he was better at being soothing. He tried for logic, which was always a comforting, centering force in his own times of trouble. “This spirit who has attached itself to you. Ardor, you said?”

“That’s what it calls itself.”

“Then that is what it is. Ardor. Passion. Passion itself is not evil, is it? But it can be dangerous. _Very_ dangerous.” Jongin frowned, considering that. “Passion can cause someone to ignore their good sense, to go to extremes, to forget how to see other viewpoints. Passion can drive someone to great things, but it can also drive them mad.”

Jongin’s gaze dropped. “It’s so… hungry,” he whispered. “I have never felt anything like what I felt tonight. It _wants._ Desperately and voraciously.” He shuddered. “I can’t control it. I can’t keep it in check.”

“Yes, you can,” Tao said firmly.

“I _can’t!_ ” Jongin got up, started to pace. “Maybe I should have just turned myself in, maybe I should have let Sehun take me.” Long fingers buried deep in short-cropped hair, tugging distressingly. “Maybe I should have let them make me Tranquil, then I wouldn’t be a danger to anyone ever again.”

That drove Tao to his feet as well. “Don’t _ever_ say that,” he snapped. “Don’t you _dare._ Tranquility is an _abomination,_ and affront to every Creator and every moral code.” Surprised, Jongin stopped in his tracks. Tao’s voice was shaking - he did his best to calm himself. “No one deserves to be made Tranquil, I don’t care _what_ their crime is. It’s _evil._ ”

Wet brown eyes raised to meet his. “Why are you doing this?” Jongin asked quietly. “Why are you defending me, _helping_ me? It puts you in danger, and you don’t - you don’t know me. You owe me nothing.” He narrowed his eyes. “You should be booting me out onto the street.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Maybe that’s true,” Tao said. “Maybe I’ll regret this. Probably. That does seem likely.” Jongin scowled at him, and Tao smiled. When logic didn’t work, try telling people the opposite of what they wanted to believe. “But having someone around who can shoot lightning from their fingertips will come in handy, once you have enough confidence to actually do it. I can be patient. Won’t be the first time I’ve waited weeks or months for a payoff.”

Jongin’s laugh was startled, and a little choked. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Well… thank you. I may never be able to repay you.”

Tao rolled his eyes. “Sure you will,” he said confidently. “You’re a worthy investment of my time.” 

Jongin blinked at him, shock scribbled across his face, and Tao paused. He was acting like this was a new idea - hadn’t anyone ever told him he had worth, before?

Gruffly, Tao redirected. “It’s been a very long day, and we’re both exhausted.” He hesitated. “The, um. The spirit, or demon. Ardor? Is it still… talking to you?”

“Not at the moment,” Jongin said. His face burned with shame. “I think that whatever it did to Sehun, it tired Ardor out. Or… sated it, maybe.” He rolled his neck uncomfortably. “I can still feel it, but it’s quiet right now. Resting.”

“Then you should definitely go to bed now,” Tao said. “While it’s too lethargic to mess with your dreams.” That the spirit had been interfering with Jongin’s dreams was just a guess, from Tao’s personal experience with the spirit-ridden and from the way Jongin constantly shifted and whimpered in his sleep. By the look on Jongin’s face, he wasn’t far from wrong. “Go on. We’ll discuss more in the morning.”

Hesitantly, Jongin went to his bedroll, removing his shirt and boots before rolling himself into the threadbare blankets like the filling in a stuffed pastry, his messy dark hair sticking out of the top. “Goodnight, then,” he said softly, muffled by blankets.

Something wrapped around Tao’s heart and squeezed gently. “Goodnight.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Meredith went easy on him. When she was done questioning him, Sehun didn’t even have any broken bones - just some new bruises, and a persistent ringing in his ears that jangled dissonantly against the lyrium song still buzzing through his mind.

She left Sehun there on the floor, with orders to wait until he was fetched. Maddox was the one who came to get Sehun, who helped him off the floor of the officer’s lounge and forced him to drink a potion.

Sehun was pretty sure it was meant as an insult, or a test, because Maddox was Tranquil.

“Can you walk?” Maddox asked, in the unsettling monotone that all Tranquil had. “I have been ordered to bring you to the confinement chambers. I am not strong enough to carry you.”

The potion had done its work, and Sehun had hardly felt the pain anyway. There was too much lyrium in his blood for that. “I can walk,” Sehun snapped, pulling out of Maddox’s grip.

The Tranquil unsettled him. They unsettled everyone, frankly. There was just… nothing to connect to, nothing to engage with. Like speaking to a stone wall, except the wall could speak back.

Maddox, who was in his mid-30s, pale and plain with a completely shaved head, gestured at the door, his face expressionless. Sehun’s eyes got caught on the sunburst brand burned into his forehead, just above his eyebrows. From a distance, the Tranquil brands looked decorative, even attractive. Up close, though, Sehun could see the scarring, the way the flesh had twisted as it was seared.

Once, he’d been a normal man. A mage. Sehun knew that, but it was hard to imagine. Maddox had never been anything but an empty shell, to Sehun.

Sehun went, and Maddox kept pace beside him.

He was thankful that it was late, and very few people were out in the halls. No one paid them much attention. They walked right past the front gates, and Sehun had the sudden, wild thought that he could just... run. Just overpower Maddox and leave, run out there and find Jongin and - 

And do what?

He scoffed at himself. It was an idiot’s fantasy. Templars looked no more kindly on their own defecting than they did on the mages, and besides, Sehun was still held in the lyrium’s thrall. If he left, he risked cutting himself off from it entirely, which was bad enough any day, but he’d just taken a double dose.

He’d only ever felt the edges of the lyrium-hunger, never the real thing, and even just that slight craving was enough that he knew he would never willingly force himself into it. The loss of his lyrium was one of the few things in life that genuinely terrified him.

Meredith had sentenced him to a week of solitary confinement, and then another week of double shifts. It was a harsh punishment, but not anywhere near as harsh as it could have been, because she'd made it clear he would be allowed his allotments next week. She believed he had been overpowered by an unknown blood mage, and she was punishing him for his weakness, his inability to resist mind control. Nothing more. 

He'd somehow managed to keep the truth from her.

He’d had to. The idea that Jongin was out there with a demon in his head made Sehun feel sick, terrified, furious. But he was _alive,_ and the demon hadn’t destroyed him yet, and that little bit of hope, that Jongin might possibly be saved, kept Sehun going.

If the Templars knew of the demon, every one of them would be turned out to scour the city, until Jongin was found and killed. Sehun would never let that happen. Not while there was still a chance.

Sehun glanced at Maddox, silent and compliant at his side. Maddox would do anything Sehun told him to do, unless it went directly against an officer’s orders. He had no magic anymore, and his body was no stronger than that of any other scholar of middling age.

That he’d been sent to ‘guard’ Sehun meant that Meredith had absolutely no fear that Sehun would try to leave, try to run. Even after what she just did to him, she knew he’d willingly stay. They understood each other, he and his Commander.

At least he hadn’t betrayed Jongin, no matter what Meredith had done.

He looked down at his hands. Lyrium still glowed under his skin, visible especially at the insides of his wrists and elbows, where the veins were very close to the surface. It was grotesque, and it _burned._ He understood now why the lyrium doses were so carefully monitored.

He was trapped, caged, just as much as the mages were. Leashed and hobbled, just as surely as Maddox was.

The comparison made him suddenly curious. He’d never asked before, too unsettled by the very notion of the Tranquil, but now, he wondered...

“Maddox,” he asked, as they started up the stairs. “Why were you made Tranquil?”

“I failed my Harrowing,” Maddox immediately replied. “I was a danger to myself and to others, and so my connection to the Fade was broken.”

The answer was so… Practiced. Nearly word-for-word what everyone else said about the Tranquil. Up until now, he’d never questioned it. Who would? It was a hell of an uncomfortable thing to ask.

But the Tranquil couldn’t be offended, so what did he have to lose?

“You’re lying,” Sehun accused. Maddox looked at him dispassionately. “That isn’t why you were made Tranquil.”

“No,” Maddox said, still monotone. “It is not.” 

The fact that he'd just contradicted himself didn't seem to register with him at all. “You were ordered to say that,” Sehun realized.

“Yes. It is better for people to believe that the reasons that mages are made Tranquil are consistent. It brings them comfort.” It sounded very much like he didn’t understand what he was saying, like he was just regurgitating what had been said to him.

Sehun’s heart was pounding, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just the lyrium. “Tell me the real reason you were made Tranquil,” Sehun ordered.

Maddox didn’t hesitate. “I disobeyed,” he said, as calm and unemotional as ever. “I had a lover outside of the Gallows. They found out I was writing to her.”

Freezing in place, Sehun stared at him. “What?”

“I disobeyed. I had a lover outside of - ”

“I heard you, sorry.” Sehun shook his head, refusing to believe it. His pulse pounded in his ears, too loud in the silent stairwell. “They - they ripped away your magic, and your emotions, and your dreams. They severed your connection to the Fade. Because you were… in love?”

A single blink, and no change of expression besides that. “My lover was attempting to convince me to run away,” he said. “There was a Templar. Samson. He was helping me. He took my letters to her, and brought hers to me.”

Sehun couldn’t breathe. “I’ve heard of Samson,” he said. “He was thrown out of the Order. They say he wanders the streets of Lowtown now, homeless and insane. That he lost his mind to the hunger.” It was a tale passed from recruit to recruit. He’d heard it within his first week at the Gallows, and dismissed it as a fairy tale, made up to scare the newest recruits into obedience.

“He was indeed exiled,” Maddox said. “I do not know what happened to him after. Lyrium withdrawal can be deadly. I suspect he did not survive.” He started up the stairs again.

Lead-footed, Sehun followed. “Maddox, do you… Can you remember your love?”

“Of course I can,” Maddox said. “She was about the same height as Ser Moira, and had red hair.”

That wasn’t what Sehun had meant. “Do you remember… what it felt like to _be_ in love?”

Just like every other time before, Maddox didn’t hesitate. His answer was as emotionless as any other.

“No. I do not.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

There was a large part of Jongin that did not expect to wake up again the next morning.

He wouldn’t have blamed Tao, if he’d just decided the risk was too much and killed Jongin in his sleep. It might be the only way that a non-Templar, non-magic user might be able to get the better of Ardor.

But Jongin woke with a beam of pale morning sunlight on his face, after a night of vaguely unsettling dreams that he thankfully didn’t remember. When he sat up and looked around, he found Tao at the washbasin, shirtless. Shaving.

As if he didn’t care even a little bit that Jongin was a dangerous apostate mage, one weak moment away from becoming a monster.

“You’re up,” Tao said, as he wiped shaving cream from his face with a towel. “Care to shave? Not that the little chin-shadow isn’t cute, but you strike me as the type who prefers a clean face.” He held out his straight razor, an invitation.

Jongin got to his feet. “You don’t seem to… care,” he said carefully. “That I have a demon inside me.”

Tao shrugged. “I know this is going to shock your Andrastian sensibilities, but it won’t be the first time I have lived with a possessed mage,” he said. Jongin’s jaw dropped. “See, I knew it. Listen. You’re not harmless, I know that. But if you or that spirit inside of you intended to hurt me, you already would have done it. You’ve had plenty of opportunity.” He wiggled the razor. “Are you going to shave, or not?”

 _I like him a lot,_ Ardor murmured softly, as Jongin took the blade from Tao’s hand. It wasn’t the most high-quality razor he’d seen, but it was well-kept. _He’s so very practical._

“Ardor likes you,” Jongin blurted out. He wasn’t really sure why. Maybe there was a part of him that just wanted to see Tao’s reaction.

Tao raised an eyebrow. “It has good taste, then,” he murmured. The way he said it made Jongin bite his lip and fight back a blush. Why was he… _staring_ like that?

_Silly little mage, don’t you realize how that sounds? He told you last night that he doesn’t believe I have emotions of my own._

Oh. Jongin lost his battle with his blush. Turning away, he brushed past Tao to the basin to make use of the razor.

Did Ardor really not have emotions of its own? Could it really only be turning Jongin’s emotions back to him? It seemed unlikely.

 _To say I have no emotions is… inaccurate,_ Ardor mused. _But I am affected very strongly by yours, yes. I am surrounded by your mind, your thoughts push in on me from all sides, your point of view invades my own. So it’s not entirely untrue, either._

Surreal. Jongin wondered, if he were to get out of this situation alive, if he should write a book about sharing his body with a demon. He was certain that scholars would be fascinated by it.

Jongin shaved, and washed up, fixed his hair and got dressed and ate breakfast with Tao, talking about nothing of import. Then, they left the tenement via the rooftop trap door, and started on their rounds of the Friends of Red Jenny caches.

It was… Not unpleasant. Despite the nagging anxiety in the back of Jongin’s mind that something could go wrong, despite the worry that Sehun would be harshly punished for allowing Jongin to escape, the fact of the matter was that it was a lovely morning, that Kirkwall was much more pleasant in the cool morning hours, that Tao was an amusing companion and that Jongin was, for the first time in his life, free to go out publically without fear.

Well… Perhaps not _entirely_ without fear. There was always still a chance that the Templars would hunt him, or that he would stumble upon them entirely by accident. But they couldn’t track him anymore, not directly, and that made the worst of Jongin’s fear fade. He found himself actually _laughing,_ more than once, and maybe, just maybe, flirting a little with Tao, in shy smiles and fleeting touches as they moved.

Tao was loosening up, too. His smile were more wicked than shy, his touches more lingering than Jongin’s, but it was a little difficult to tell if that was because he was flirting back, or if he was just sort of… like that. Jongin had never met a Rivaini before, he had no idea how different their culture would be on that sort of thing. Rumors painted Rivain as a bawdy and scandalous place, full of thieves and whores, free love and loose morals, and Jongin really didn’t know how much of that was true. So he decided not to read too much into it, and to just enjoy the chance to dabble in flirtation.

Unfortunately, it seemed there were no new jobs waiting for them in the caches today, so they took a simple lunch in the market, and then, in the afternoon, went down into the Undercity to look for the amulet.

Jongin had by now stopped huddling in Tao’s shadow when they walked through Lowtown. It was dirty and loud, but most of the people there were just peasants and merchants, no one who genuinely wished Jongin harm. In the narrow tunnels of the Undercity, though, he stuck very close to Tao’s side, trying not to jump every time some heavily-armed stranger turned a blind corner and nearly ran directly into them.

“We need to get you a staff,” Tao said, after the third time Jongin had to bite back a scream of startlement. “You’ll feel better if you have something to defend yourself with.”

Puffing an exhale, Jongin said, “I’m out of practice. Apprentices aren’t allowed staves in the Gallows, I haven’t used one since I lived at the Lookout in Starkhaven.”

Tao eyed him. “Six years? Well, we’ll find you one without a blade, then. That’s a better idea anyway, enough people carry walking sticks that it won’t stand out too much. This way.” He tugged Jongin down yet another dimly-lit, smelly passageway.

They ended up at a sewer drainage grate somewhere far below the city. The pile of refuse was slimy and disgusting, and smelled even worse than it looked, to the point that Jongin thought he might gag.

“Ugh. This might not be worth fifty silver,” Tao said, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t suppose you can just… wave your hand and make the thing light up, or something.”

“No,” Jongin said. “But I can do this.” He reached over and brushed his hand against Tao’s face, tracing his thumb delicately around Tao’s the tip of his nose, the little healed scar on one of his nostrils. With a thought, and a mental tug on the magic inherent in Tao’s body, Jongin took both of their senses of smell away.

Tao blinked. “Oh. That actually - that does help. Thank you.” Jongin smiled, stepped back, and whispered the spell for handheld flame, holding his fingers up so that the pile of garbage was better illuminated.

Rolling up his sleeves, Tao got to work. Jongin stayed as close as he dared, holding the flame to illuminate Tao’s work, grimacing as the nasty water swirled around his boots.

It took a while, but Tao was methodical, using his longest daggers to work through the pile from top to bottom and right to left, leaving no piece of rubbish unturned. Eventually, his blade came away with a chain hooked around it, and Tao exclaimed his triumph and scrambled out of the pit.

“That’s it?” Jongin asked.

“Matches the description and the location. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He led Jongin up and out of the sewer, and straight through the tunnels to an underground dock. It wasn’t the same one as where they had met, but it was similar, a cave opening in the rock right at sea level, with a shabby, weatherbeaten wooden platform built out into the water itself.

Tao ran forward and jumped directly into the sea, keeping one hand on the dock’s mooring post to prevent himself from being washed away. Jongin sat at the edge of the dock and dropped his feet into the water, washing the waste-laden mud off his boots, and watched as Tao, now soaked but clean, pulled himself back up onto the dock beside him.

This time, he didn’t need Ardor’s appreciative hum in the back of his mind. He was looking already. Tao’s dark red shirt clung wetly to his skin, and he yanked his collar open, as if just to give Jongin a lovely view of the drops of seawater sliding down the curve of his chest.

Jongin pulled off his neck-kerchief and handed it to Tao, who wiped off his face and scrubbed it quickly through his long hair to stop the worst of the dripping. When he was done, Jongin reached over and gave Tao back his sense of smell with a gentle touch, and if his fingers momentarily brushed over Tao’s lips, well, no one was going to fault him for it.

Tao’s smile was knowing. Jongin blushed, but made no apologies. He had never had the freedom to flirt openly like this before; if Tao was going to let him, Jongin wasn’t going to pass it up.

“That could have been worse, I suppose,” Tao said, as he examined the amulet in his hands. “This is a nice piece. I don’t recognize the symbols.”

“I do,” Jongin said. He took the amulet from Tao’s hands and looked it over. “These symbols were used by the cults of the Old Gods in ancient Tevinter.” He turned the amulet over in his hand, running his thumb over the pale moonstone set in the center. “This is magic, I can feel it.”

“Wait, really?” Tao leaned in, crowding against Jongin’s side to get a closer look, wet and warm. “What kind of magic?”

Closing his eyes, Jongin took a slow breath and listened inside his mind. Enchanted items all had unique feels to them, but it took a bit to really suss out what he was feeling. “It’s a protection spell,” he said finally. “Not a particularly strong one, but considering how old it probably is, it’s pretty amazing that the enchantment has lasted.”

Tao hummed, and took the amulet back. “Interesting,” he said, as he put the chain over his own head and settled it against his chest. “See? I knew having you around was going to come in handy.” He smiled, all glittering black eyes and glistening tan skin, and Jongin flushed and smiled back, ducking his head in embarrassment. “Well, this was a good afternoon’s work, then. We deserve a bit of a break, don’t you think?” He laid back on the wood, folding his arms behind his head. “Hopefully no one needs to use this dock for a while, I need to dry off.”

Hesitantly, Jongin stretched out next to him, resting on his stomach, propped up by his elbows. Tao closed his eyes, and they stayed like that for a while, just basking in the sun like… like cats.

Jongin had never had freedom like this. He wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

Eventually, Jongin fell into a doze. His dreams were uneasy, as they always were, dreams of walking darkened corridors alone, or of hiding silently in wardrobes, or of running, without daring to look back at the burning heat that he could feel chasing close behind him.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Solitary confinement was excruciating, in more ways than one.

With the lyrium singing so loudly in his mind, Sehun didn’t sleep at all that night, pacing the floor of his small stone cell for hours with his mind racing on a dozen paths at once. When that threatened to drive him mad, he turned to physical exertion, pushing himself through calisthenics, bodyweight exercises and combat drills all the way up until sunrise in an attempt to work off some of the extra power coursing through his veins.

This, he knew, was why Cullen had warned him not to take the second dose right before bed; it was hours and hours before the initial surge died down, before he could force himself to stand still for more than a minute at a time. Since the last time he’d slept, he had worked a double shift, gone up against an abomination, gotten his ass handed to him half a dozen times in the ring, broken his nose, _healed_ his nose, fought with a demon, and withstood interrogation by his own commander - and _then_ spent the entire night working his body harder than he ever had before.

He should be exhausted, he should be unable to _move_ after the day he’d had, but if anything, as the sun rose he felt strong, still far too strong, his mind snapping to attention with every little sound that floated up from below, his muscles taut and ready.

Ready for _what_ was a different matter. There was nothing to be ready for.

Sehun snarled at nothing, scrubbing his hands through his hair messily. Jongin was out there still, with a demon’s claws hooked into his mind, teetering on the verge of abomination. That he was able to come back from the full-body possession at all was a miracle beyond anything Sehun had ever seen, a testament to a strength of will that Sehun had never realized Jongin possessed.

But how long could he last? How much time did he have?

Sehun had never felt like this before. Like he could take on an ogre single-handedly, like he could rip the bars out of his tiny cell window with his bare hands. He clenched a fist, watching as the veins crawling up his arms pulsed with light, and giddily thought that he really could do it. Ripping iron out of stone seemed very, very possible right now.

But he was stronger than that. Not physically, _mentally._ Meredith had to know that this cell couldn’t hold him, just as she had to know that Maddox was a laughable excuse for a guard. It was a test of his loyalty, his obedience, and Sehun would _not_ fail.

Being locked away in here was keeping Sehun from going after Jongin, but in all honesty, there was probably nothing he could do. Sehun had never even heard of a demon co-existing with a human soul inside a human body for any length of time without destroying it; he had no way of knowing if such a thing had ever happened before or if it was reversible. Even if he were free to go chase Jongin down, likely there was nothing he could do but to kill Jongin, or to get himself killed.

He couldn’t stand that. He had all this strength coursing through his veins, so much physical and spiritual power, but he was still completely powerless to help Jongin and that made him want to _break things._

Sehun fished his locket out from under his shirt and held it tightly in one fist. The command word came from behind gritted teeth, a grating hiss. “Ma halani.”

The locket pulsed to life, steady heat beating against his skin. Like he held Jongin’s heart directly in the palm of his hand.

He was still alive, then. Still okay. Sehun exhaled, trying to let go of the tension in his shoulders, and spoke the ending command with much less anger. “Ma sarrenas.”

Jumping up, Sehun caught onto the ridge of the cell’s door frame with his very fingertips and began pulling himself up, over and over, just to try and ease the fire in his veins. He couldn’t help Jongin, but if he didn’t do _something,_ he would probably just start punching the wall until the stone gave out, or his bones did.

The sun was entirely set when footsteps finally approached. Sehun turned as the door opened. It was Cullen, with a plate of rapidly cooling food and a concerned expression.

Sehun took the food and fell onto it, ravenous. Closing the door behind him, Cullen sat on his thin cot and watched him eat. “You look terrible,” he said frankly. “Have you gotten any sleep at all?”

“No,” Sehun admitted. “The song's too loud.”

Sighing, Cullen clasped Sehun's shoulder. “I told you not to take it so late,” he mumbled. “What the hell even happened last night? Karras has an enormous bug up his arse and Meredith won't tell me a thing.”

Sehun kept eating, mostly to stall for time. Could he trust Cullen with this?

In almost anything else, the answer would not even require thought, but this was demon possession, something Cullen wouldn’t dare ignore. The possible threat would outweigh anything else.

The truth would probably exonerate him. Templars could be expected to resist a blood mage’s mind compulsion, but a demon’s? No one could fault him for that. Cullen would almost certainly get him released from the cell.

But an abomination was a danger that a simple apostate was not, and Sehun very much doubted that anyone would believe that Jongin was still alive and whole beneath the demon’s control. He barely believed it, himself - only because he had _felt_ the touch of Jongin's mind, because he had a little enchanted bit of Jongin’s blood hanging from his neck, could be bring himself to hope it was true.

Cullen would never believe. So Sehun told him the same story he'd told Meredith, that he'd heard noises, gone down to investigate, and could remember nothing else. It made him sound like he'd been put under thrall, but there was no lie he could tell that was any more believable.

From the look on Cullen's face, he knew Sehun was hiding something, but he didn't press further. “Take this,” he said as he got up to leave, holding out a waterskin. “Make it last. You'll only get one per day.”

Sehun nodded and took it. Cullen smiled at him, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, and left.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Some indeterminable amount of time later, Jongin startled awake, gasping, only to find Tao’s hand splayed against his chest, and concerned black eyes turning deep, deep brown in angled golden sunlight.

“Hey,” Tao said, “it’s just me. You’re safe.” Jongin relaxed, flopping back onto the hard wooden deck. His skin felt a little crusty with salt spray, and his back was aching. How long had he been laying here? The sun was already starting to set!

“We should get going, shouldn’t we?” he asked.

“Yeah. Come on.” Tao helped Jongin to his feet, and they started back through the Undercity.

To Jongin’s surprise, when they reached the surface, he realized they were not in Lowtown. The buildings were far too large, the streets much too clean, and they were by far the shabbiest-dressed there.

Hightown? It must be.

If the judging stares of the upper-class around them bothered Tao, he didn’t show it. He made straight for a shopkeeper’s stall in the main square, pulling on a wide and charming smile that Jongin was starting to realize was his I-want-something-and-I’m-going-to-get-it face.

“Can I help you?” the shopkeep said, eyeing them. He was darker-skinned even than Tao, dressed in velvet and satin, and had one of the snobbier Orlesian accents Jongin had ever heard.

“You might!” Tao pulled the amulet off his neck and held it out. “I’ve heard that you are a man of discerning tastes. Would you be interested in this?”

Jongin stopped in his tracks, wide-eyed. But - hadn’t Tao said that someone had lost that amulet? That it was a family heirloom?

The shopkeeper took the amulet in hand, though Tao did not let go of the chain, and examined it. He glanced up, and even Jongin could see that his expression had abruptly shuttered. “This is a pretty trinket,” he said. “Are you selling?”

“I am,” Tao said. “And you and I both know that it’s more than _pretty._ Look closer, friend.”

Giving Tao a suspicious look, the man went behind his table and pulled something from a locked chest. For the first time, Jongin actually looked at the merchandise on the table and hung at the back of the stall, and his breath caught. Robes, staves, flexible light gloves with runes stitched into the cuffs, clearly enchanted jewelry of a dozen different kinds. Mages’ gear.

The shopkeep came out with a small looking-glass with a pinkish crystal lens. He examined the amulet with it, and his eyes widened.

He looked up at Tao. “I’ll give you two sovereigns.”

Tao smiled sweetly. “Don’t insult me, serah. You know as well as I do that that amulet is older than most of the buildings in this city.”

He really was going to sell it! Horrified, Jongin wondered if he should stop this. Some poor peasant had asked for Tao’s help and he was just going to -

 _Why are you surprised?_ Ardor said. _He is a thief. He cares only for his own gain._

Why did it seem like Ardor _admired_ that?!

_Because he knows how to take care of himself. He doesn’t let ideals get in the way of his own success._

Tao haggled, charming and convincing, and eventually, the shopkeep agreed to his price, and paid eight sovereigns for the amulet, albeit grudgingly.

Then, Tao shocked Jongin even further, by saying, “Can we see your staves?”

This seemed to cheer the shopkeep up, and he laid out a selection, setting them on the table. Wood and metal, bladed and blunt, decorated and plain, it was a variety Jongin hadn’t seen in a while.

“Hightown apostates get away with carrying staves much more easily,” Tao murmured in his ear. “If you want quality, this is where you go.” It was not so quiet that the shopkeep couldn’t hear, and Jongin saw him puff up a bit. Was Tao just flattering the man? “See anything you like?”

Jongin bit his lip. He should refuse. The money was essentially stolen, from someone who likely needed it far more than Jongin and Tao did.

_That one._

Ardor turned Jongin’s attention to the last one in the row. It was not quite as long as Jongin was tall, a long pole with four graceful, swooping flanges at the end, as if someone had simply stretched out a warrior’s mace. He put his hand on it, and could immediately tell it was made of silverite, but its finish was finely etched to dull the metal’s characteristic sheen to something more plain-looking, more unobtrusive.

He picked the staff up. Setting the end on the ground, it came up to his chin. Weighty, but not nearly as heavy as it looked, and it seemed to call to the lighting that was his trademark, sending sparks of purple dancing up the length. It felt very good in Jongin’s hands.

Tao grinned at him. “How much?” he asked the shopkeep.

The answer, after more haggling, was two sovereigns fifty. Tao paid cheerfully, and they left the shop just as the last rays of sunlight disappeared, getting through the gates of Hightown just before they closed for the night.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Jongin muttered, but he knew it was a hollow protest. He was already mostly in love with the staff, and the shock that Tao had bought it for him almost outweighed the shock of how callously he had sold off someone else’s treasured possession to get it.

“Are you kidding? This will put food in the pantry for weeks, if we’re careful.” Tao sounded as cheerful as Jongin had ever heard. “Today was a _very_ good day.”

Weeks? That was all? Jongin knew he didn’t really have a concept of how expensive it was to keep a person fed, but… He bit his lip, looking down at his feet, at the end of his new staff where it rested against the cobblestones.

Maybe he just needed to get used to the idea that he had to put himself first.

Maybe this was just his life, now.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Sehun was in confinement for an entire day before he was exhausted enough to sleep. His dreams were messy, filled with blood and lightning and scalding hot power, with Fade-green eyes and an insistent song in his ears. He woke a dozen times in the night, such that by morning, he felt as if he had not slept at all.

Two days after that, the burn of the extra lyrium in his veins finally began to fade, and Sehun could stop spending his every waking moment pacing or fighting with invisible foes. Unfortunately, he had little else to do, so this just meant that he spent hours staring out of his tiny window at the restless sea, with his mind spinning in terrible, unproductive circles and his hand wrapped around the locket, feeling the changes in Jongin’s heartbeat.

By the morning of his fourth day of confinement, Sehun was keeping up a running commentary to himself, muttering about demons, and thieves, and a mage, _his_ mage, who he was going to get back no matter what. His thoughts were fogging, by that point, the lyrium hunger combined with the monotony clouding his mind.

By the afternoon of the fourth day, the lyrium’s strength was draining from his body, leaving him feeling weak, empty, deflated. Normally he didn’t feel like this until the last few hours before going to receive allotments, but it seemed that the more lyrium one took, the faster it burned away. It infuriated him to feel this way, to feel helpless and caged, to know that he’d had his chance to rip free from this blasted cell and he’d squandered it out of some shitty sense of _duty._

He wanted that strength back. That sheer power, coursing through his veins, making spells wash off him like waves lapping at the foot of a stone cliff, making the world seem bright and focused, making him feel _alive._ He _needed_ it. Jongin was out there in the city with a fucking demon in his head, in danger every minute, and he was scared. Every time Jongin’s heartbeat skipped or quickened, Sehun could feel it, and it was driving him mad. Jongin needed Sehun to be strong, and Sehun _would_ be. Sehun couldn’t afford to be locked up like this.

He didn’t sleep at all on the fourth night.

By the fifth morning, the hunger had kicked in full-force. Sehun pressed himself into the corner of his room, desperate for the feeling of the stone at his back to ground him as spasms of pain overtook his limbs, pounded through his head. His knuckles were bloody from where he’d lashed out in his pain, and if that awful itch didn’t stop soon, he was going to rip his own shirt to shreds, and maybe his skin, too.

Somehow, he made it through the fifth day in one piece. His shirt, however, did not.

By the evening of the sixth day, Sehun had nothing left. He hadn’t slept more than fifteen minutes or held down any food beyond a few sips of water in two days, and what strength he had remaining was gone. He was curled up on his hard cot, shivering violently, when Cullen finally came to him, finally brought his allotments with his singular meal.

“Maker,” Cullen breathed, as Sehun struggled to sit up. He shut the door and hurried to the bed. “They didn’t tell me it was _this_ bad.”

“Did you - Do you have -” Sehun could barely speak; his voice croaked from disuse.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to speak. Cullen knew what he needed. “Yes,” he said, and held up the little wooden box that held Sehun’s philter kit. “I have it.” Sehun reached, desperate; Cullen gently pushed his hands away. “You’re shaking. Let me.”

So Sehun waited, huddled against Cullen’s side for warmth with his knees pulled up to his chest, while Cullen carefully prepared the dose, diluting it with clean water and administering it to Sehun a few sips at a time. The wait was excruciating, but the small part of Sehun’s mind that was still rational knew that taking it slow was the best way to prevent having another bad crash later in the week. So he let Cullen feed him, hating that he’d been reduced to acting like a damned baby bird, but glad that it was only Cullen who was here to see it.

About halfway through the dose, Sehun’s strength started to return to him, enough that he could uncurl and take the rest of it himself. Cullen stayed, watching him, as he finished his dose and started on the food.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come see you,” he said.

“I’m in solitary confinement,” Sehun replied, between bites. The world was already sharpening. His food already tasted better. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

Cullen shook his head. “I had planned to be the one to bring your dinner every night, but I’m afraid this week has been…” He sighed. “Trying.”

He sounded exhausted. Frowning, Sehun turned on the cot, folding one leg up so he could face Cullen more fully. “What happened?”

“There was a mass escape,” Cullen said, and Sehun sat up straighter in alarm. “About a dozen, most of them low-ranked mages. None of the senior enchanters were involved, as far as we could tell, and they didn’t take any of the apprentices, thank the Maker. The last thing this city needs is an unsupervised mage child running amok.” He shook his head. “It took two days, but we brought most of them back alive and safe.”

“Most of them?” Sehun asked softly.

Cullen pressed his face into his palms, pulling them slowly down, as if trying to drag the exhaustion from his skin. “Rather than allowing himself to be brought in, Huon turned to blood magic,” he muttered, and Sehun stiffened, horrified. “He killed his own damned wife, Sehun. Sacrificed her in a desperate attempt to get enough power to get away. And Evelina… she killed Paxley and Hera when they tried to bring her in. She was terrified. By the time we found her again, she’d succumbed.”

Sehun let his fork drop, his appetite lost. “A demon?” he asked. Cullen nodded. “Did she…”

“We were too late. The moment she was threatened, the demon burst from her skin. She had to be killed.”

“Maker,” Sehun breathed. Two mages and two Templars killed in just one week. 

Paxley. Shit. He’d been in Sehun’s training class.

“I should warn you,” Cullen said. “Some of the Templars are blaming you for the breakout.”

Startled, Sehun sat up straight. “What? Why?”

“The phylactery vault wasn’t immediately sealed again after it was opened,” Cullen told him, and Sehun’s stomach dropped awfully. “Some of the escapist mages got in and smashed them all, before they ran.”

Sehun covered his mouth with one hand, feeling sick. “Captain. Shit. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize - ”

“I don’t blame you,” Cullen said immediately. “You were still dazed from being enthralled, and it wasn’t _your_ choice to be dragged up to the officer’s quarters immediately. Karras was the one who left the door open, and he has already answered for it, believe me. He’s not happy with me either, at the moment.” He took in Sehun’s expression, and tried to smile. It wasn’t a very convincing smile. “We’ve gotten everyone else back, and Orsino and the senior enchanters worked for days to get new phylacteries made for the mages who are still here and safe. It could have been worse.” His attempt at a smile dropped. “Except… Emile is gone. He was one of the ones who left, the only one who wasn’t found again. We’re looking, but…”

“Emile de Launcet?” Sehun tried to imagine that pampered, whiny noble’s son conducting any kind of daring escape. It was… quite difficult. “Shit. Cullen, I’ve got to get back out there.”

Cullen shook his head. “You have one more day of confinement, and then a week of double duty. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll keep your head down until some time has passed. The gossip in the barracks is… not flattering, and that’s just what they’ll say while I’m within earshot.” 

Great. Now Sehun felt victimized on top of guilty and worried. “Ser, I hate to ask, but… Has there been any sign of Jongin?”

“None. Karras is still hunting, but without the phylactery it’s much more difficult, and with this week as insane as it’s been…” Cullen sighed, and squeezed Sehun’s shoulder. “We’ll find him, though. Don’t worry.”

Sehun wasn’t sure if he should be relieved by that, or not.

Cullen stood. “I’m going to leave your philter kit and your second dose here, but I’d really caution you strongly against taking it before you get out.” His brow was pinched. “I didn’t want to leave it with you at all, not while you’re so… _bored._ But Meredith insists that you need to become accustomed to the dosage, so it won’t affect you so strongly.” He pulled a glowing phial from his belt-purse, tucked it into the philter kit box, and closed the lid. “Seriously. Don’t take it until morning at the earliest, and… if you can wait until the morning after you get out, that would be even better.”

“Yes, ser,” Sehun said solemnly.

“Alright,” Cullen said. “One more day. Hang in there.” Sehun saluted, and Cullen smiled, closing the door behind him.

Immediately, Sehun dropped to the floor and shoved his philter kit all the way under the bed. He intended to take Cullen’s advice, but if he had to stare at the thing for the entire day, he wasn’t sure he’d be strong enough to resist.

Hoping to distract himself - and glad to be pain-free and to have energy in his body again - Sehun did the only thing he could do. He started his combat drills yet again.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao had guessed that keeping Jongin with him would be a sound investment, and over the next few days, as they fell into a comfortable routine with each other, he was proved to be correct. With his phylactery destroyed, a staff in his hand, and a real stake in the success of Tao’s daily work, Jongin began to blossom.

It was slow but steady progress, starting with that next morning, when Jongin turned a city guard away from the alley where Tao was checking a cache with nothing more than a whispered word and a subtle gesture. The man had turned and walked the other way, muttering something nonsensical to himself, Jongin’s spell clouding his mind just enough that he forgot what he had been coming to investigate.

Then, the next day, while they were performing another highly illegal “errand” for Charade, they’d come across a magical trap, and Jongin had not only warned Tao before he stepped on it, but dispelled the magic before it could activate. Tao was pretty good at spotting traps as a rule, but magical traps were something else, and it was wholly possible that Jongin had saved his life.

They were starting to make a good team. It was… very strange, for Tao, who had never had a partner of any regular sort, and had not lived with anyone at all since he had left home. But Jongin took up little space, and seemed to be very accustomed both to living with someone and to staying out of their way. He still had nightmares, and every once in a while, Tao would catch him mumbling under his breath, arguing with Ardor. But the spirit didn’t attempt to take Jongin over again, and so Tao figured he’d just keep his eyes open for signs that the mage was losing himself, at least for now.

Templar presence in the city seemed to be at an all-time high, with small groups and hunting parties prowling the streets at all hours, so they had to be very careful about their comings and goings. Jongin relied heavily on Tao’s shadow ability to hide, and while Tao thought that Jongin probably didn’t actually _need_ his help in order to misdirect the Templars, he always complied when Jongin asked him to hide them, willingly pulling Jongin close and tucking them both away in the shadows.

Jongin was beautiful, and felt very nice in Tao’s arms, and every time he whispered _thank you_ in Tao’s ear as they huddled in the shadows, Tao’s ego swelled just a little more. No one had ever relied on him like this, _trusted_ him like this, and it was doing very strange things to Tao’s mind.

For five days, so it went. They dodged Templars, they checked the caches, the worked little jobs and they grew comfortable with each other. And then, on the morning of the sixth day as they were checking the caches, Tao found something, in the Hightown cache that was tucked in the abandoned building between the Harimann estate and Magistrate Vanard’s home. A single piece of parchment, in vaguely familiar handwriting.

_Undercity docks, southeast. Exchange of valuable cargo. ___

__Below that, a date. Today._ _

__“What is that?” Jongin asked, startling Tao so badly that he actually dropped the parchment. Jongin rescued it, catching it with a tiny telekinesis spell before it could land in the dust, and pulled it open. “Exchange of valuable cargo?” he read._ _

__“Put it back,” Tao snapped, much more sharply than he intended to. Jongin looked up at him, wounded by his tone, and Tao took a calming breath and tried to smile apologetically. “Sorry. We don’t want to get mixed up in that one, trust me.”_ _

__“Isn’t valuable cargo exactly what we are looking for?” Jongin asked, curious._ _

__Tao plucked the parchment from his hand. “ _Leave it,_ Jongin. It’s too dangerous.”_ _

__Jongin stared at him, confused and obviously starting to get suspicious. “How could you know that? Literally all it says is ‘valuable cargo.’ Is it a trap?”_ _

__Tucking the parchment back, Tao tied the bag closed again with sharp movements and didn’t answer. He tucked the bag back in its hiding place and got up, fully intending to leave._ _

__Catching his arm, Jongin held him back. “Tao. Tell me what that means.”_ _

__“Don’t.”_ _

__“ _Tao._ ” Tao glared, and Jongin crossed his arms in annoyance. “What is going on with you? If you don’t trust me just _say_ so - ”_ _

__“It’s a slaving exchange, alright?” Tao snapped. “I fell for that once already, and it nearly got me killed. I’m not going near it again.” Fuck, he could hear the fucking chains rattling. Tao took a deep breath and pushed the memory away._ _

__Jongin’s eyes were wide. “Like the one where - when you found me? How do you know?”_ _

__“Same wording, same handwriting, same cache location.” Tao started walking down the alley. “The only reason we made it out of there last time was luck. I’m not going near it.”_ _

__He was nearly to the street when Jongin caught up to him, barring Tao’s way with his staff. Tao pulled up short before he hit the barrier. “You mean you don’t see any gain for _you,_ ” Jongin accused._ _

__“No,” Tao agreed harshly. “I _don’t._ And I’m not going to risk my life or my freedom on it, or _yours,_ for that matter.”_ _

__Deep brown eyes bored into his. “I should have known,” Jongin said. “I knew you were mercenary, that you were only out for yourself. I didn’t think you were a _coward,_ too.”_ _

__The words hit like a knife to the gut. “You have no Gods-damned idea what you're even talking about,” Tao spat. “You know nothing about the world, and you know _nothing_ about _me._ ” He pushed Jongin’s staff down. “Now let's get the fuck out of here before someone calls the guard.”_ _

__Stepping back from him, Jongin shook his head. “No,” he said. “I will not piddle around with bags of junk while people are getting stolen off the streets. If you won’t go save them, I will.”_ _

__Tao’s heart stopped. He leapt forward, reaching. “No, Jongin, don’t go near it, it’s not worth - ”_ _

__Dark eyes flashed green, just for a second, and Tao was pulled up short by something he couldn’t see. “This isn’t about _worth,_ ” Jongin said, and Tao legitimately couldn’t tell if it was Ardor, or if Jongin was just really, _really_ angry. “If you’re not coming with me, get out of my way.”_ _

__Stunned, Tao could only watch as Jongin turned on his heel and sprinted for the gates.  
_ _

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual references: [Meredith](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/z87soMQIpbI/maxresdefault.jpg), [Maddox](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/a/ab/Maddox.jpg), [Jongin's staff](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/0/02/Imported_Circle_Staff_%28Dragon_Age_II%29.png/revision/latest).
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee).


	5. Chapter 5

Tao was so stung by Jongin’s outburst, he couldn’t bring himself to _move_ at first.

How - how _dare_ \- that _ungrateful_ little - 

Flustered, frustrated, Tao started pacing in the alley. What did Jongin know, anyway?! By his own admission, he’d been sheltered inside Circles his entire life. He hadn’t seen what Tao had seen, hadn’t _survived_ what Tao had survived.

Jongin was an idiot. A naive, idealistic simpleton, and Tao was better off without him. Tao had _always_ been better off alone.

Starting resolutely down the street towards the next cache, Tao decided he was going to think no more about it.

A coward? Hah. The things Tao had seen would make that boy’s hair stand on end. Jongin was afraid of his own _shadow,_ unless he had a spirit bolstering him.

The thought made Tao slow. Ardor, he’d nearly forgotten about Ardor. Could he let Jongin loose on the city with that thing inside him? Spirits and demons alike were notorious for taking advantage of a mage’s fear, desperation, loneliness. What if this was the opening Ardor had been waiting for?

No. It wasn’t any of his business. Jongin had made it perfectly clear where he stood, and Tao owed him nothing. 

Sure, Jongin had saved his life close to a half-dozen times in the past week alone, but Tao had probably done the same for him, right? They were even.

Tao should just move on. He could sell the clothes Jongin had left behind in his tenement. That would make up for some of what he’d lost by buying Jongin that staff.

Shit. Tao rarely made purchases that expensive, and definitely not for someone he barely knew, and _absolutely_ not without wanting anything in return for it. Bloody stupid decision.

But Jongin had looked so… pleased. So grateful. It had put such a spring in his step, and that shy, lovely smile…

“Creators be fucking _damned,_ every single last one of them,” Tao snarled, and turned on his heel, heading for the nearest staircase down into the cliffside.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

“How do I get to the underground dock?”

 _You’re asking me?_ Ardor said.

Jongin scowled at nothing. “Yes. I’m asking you. I know you can pull it out of my memories.”

Immediately, the knowledge appeared in his mind, less like a map and more like he just knew, like he’d taken the path a hundred times before.

_You know all you need to do is ask._

Ardor’s easy acquiescence set alarm bells off in Jongin’s mind, but he honestly could not take the time to try to figure out implications right now. He had the knowledge he needed, so he used it, hurrying through the crowded streets of Lowtown to get to the stairs that would lead down to the Undercity.

The note hadn’t specified a time, only a date, so Jongin had no idea if he was already too late, or if he would be hours early, or if he was about to walk right into the middle of a slaving deal. Giddy fear coursed through his veins, making him buzz with anticipation, so much so that he barely even registered that he was traversing the Undercity for the first time without Tao’s protection. He was moving quickly enough, with his staff out in his hand and with purpose, that people got out of _his_ way, and not the other way around.

What was he going to do? He needed a plan, and he needed it in the next few minutes, because it wasn’t going to take him that long to get to the underground dock.

_Was that question also aimed at me?_

Not exactly, but at this point Jongin would take the help. He really wasn’t sure what had come over him - and now that he was only a few minutes from his destination, doubt was overwhelming him. He was one mage, and not even a particularly good mage. How could he possibly hope to pull this off?

_Take them by surprise._

He could take a page from Tao’s playbook. Find somewhere to observe the situation, and then attack at just the right moment. If he could use fear, get them to run or to hide or at least to hesitate, he could give himself an advantage. But that might depend on how many there were - was he strong enough to force magical fear upon many people at once?

_Yes. We are._

Yes. They were.

Jongin slowed as he approached the docks. He could hear voices, rough voices with Tevinter accents, and the quiet rattle of chains.

With a gesture, he cast a spell of silence upon himself, and approached with his footsteps undetectable. He’d never gotten the hang of true invisibility spells, so he hung back in the shadows, very carefully peering around the corner and into the half-chamber, half-cave that opened out onto the water.

He seemed to have arrived only just in time. There were a dozen guards, surrounding a dozen shuffling, chained would-be slaves and herding them towards the gangplank of the ship.

Three bodies were already on the ground, bleeding out on the stones. Jongin felt Ardor perk up, like a hound that had gotten a scent. _You can use that,_ Ardor said.

What? _No!_ Everything in Jongin’s body revolted at the thought of using the blood for power. It was _evil._

 _It’s power,_ Ardor murmured. _It’s evil only if you do evil things to get it, just like any other power. They have no use for the blood anymore, and you would be using it to avenge them._ Its voice was… so reasonable. So comforting. _You don’t have time to question it, Jongin. If you don’t act, they will be on that ship and away. You need the power, take it!_

And then Jongin saw it, right there in his head. He knew how to take that power directly from the blood spilling onto the ground, he could _see_ it flowing around him. Ardor showed him, in flashes of knowledge, just how easy it would be.

He could be unstoppable.

Blades flashed. The guards were coming, and they’d already killed three people who were likely trained fighters. And Ardor offered him power, more power than he’d ever held before, right there, just out of reach.

No.

_No?_

Rather than answer in words, Jongin brought up memories of his earliest lessons at Corin’s Lookout. Memories of his original First Enchanter, Adela, crouching in front of his eight-year-old self and warning him. 

Blood magic can only come from demons. It is not power that mortals were meant to wield. It is addictive, and it is dangerous.

 _Jongin -_

Taking a very deep breath, Jongin focused his own magic, and nothing more, into his staff. He turned that power into pure terror, and released it like a tidal wave.

All of the guards stopped advancing. Several of them dropped their weapons and just _ran,_ screaming as they went. Others cowered, dropping behind crates or hiding behind their comrades.

Of those that weren’t completely incapacitated by Jongin’s first salvo, three started towards him. Swords were drawn, and one had a _bow,_ and shit, Jongin didn’t think this through - 

_You can do this,_ Ardor whispered, and brought lightning to Jongin’s fingers. Taking a deep breath, Jongin let the lightning loose.

He took out the archer first. Perhaps that was not the wisest decision, as the swordsmen were much closer, but he needed to be able to concentrate and fending off arrows was going to disrupt his casting. With her gone, Jongin turned his attention to the warriors.

He had never actually been in a real battle before, not when he had his own mind, was in control of his own actions. Ardor was helping him - speeding his reaction times, sharpening his senses, showing him possibilities - but it was Jongin who chose the spells, shaped the magic to his will, and cast. Both of the swordsmen dropped, one screaming and one already dead before he hit the ground.

It cost him a lot of power. By the time the two swordsmen were down, the others were recovering from his horror spell, but Jongin was already tapped, his limbs shaking from the power drain. Ardor brought his attention again to the blood on the ground.

 _They’re not using it,_ Ardor said.

Gritting his teeth, Jongin leaned on his staff and took deep, calming breaths, as he had been taught. He didn’t care how bad it got, he would _not_ use blood. Never.

 _I just don’t want you to die,_ Ardor said desperately.

Then help me in some other way, Jongin snapped back, and raised his staff once more. Obligingly, Ardor flowed into his veins, lighting him up with power. 

Screaming and the smell of smoking flesh filled Jongin’s senses, but Ardor pushed it away, helping him to concentrate. There was a dagger-wielding rogue who had snuck up on his left side - Ardor brought Jongin’s attention to her just in time for Jongin to swing his staff up and block the strike. His childhood training kicked in, and Jongin lashed out with the mace-like end of his staff, hard enough that he heard ribs crack under the blow. She stumbled back, and Jongin finished her with a lightning bolt and no second thoughts.

Someone called his name. Jongin turned, and saw a mage facing him down, the reddish orange of a fire spell gathering at his fingertips.

His mistake. Jongin raised his staff overhead, and brought it down.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Trying to fool himself into thinking he could willingly let Jongin go had cost him precious time. Tao sprinted across town and down the staircases, taking every shortcut he knew. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really a _fast_ way to get into the Undercity from Hightown, at least not that Tao was aware of. Tao just had to run, and pray he hadn’t delayed too long.

If something had happened to Jongin because Tao was being an idiot, Tao wasn’t really certain he’d be able to forgive himself.

As he reached the Undercity corridors and approached the dock, Tao slipped into the shadows. He could hear yelling, the sounds of fighting, and most tellingly, thunderclaps.

He peered around the corner.

Carnage met his vision. The water-worn stone of the cave floor was running red with the blood spilled, and as far as Tao could tell, not a drop of it was Jongin’s. The slaves, chained in a line and clearly drug-addled, cowered fearfully at the end of the docks as Jongin fried the last of the attackers with a sharp gesture and a shout.

He was _glowing._ Green light spiderwebbed over his skin, pulsed in his eyes, and Tao’s heart dropped. Ardor must have taken him over. Was there anything Tao could do, or was this the end for Jongin?

One of the slaves was staggering to his feet, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. He held out his hands, and Tao gasped as orange light gathered in them. A mage!

“Jongin!” the mage called out, and Jongin turned, and swung his staff over his head. In an instant, Tao saw that the would-be slave knew who Jongin was, but Jongin was too far gone to recognize him in return.

Slamming his staff end-first into the ground, Jongin called a bolt of lightning down from nowhere, smiting the mage where he stood. Electricity lanced from the victim’s chains through the rest, and all of the slaves screamed in agony.

“ _Jongin!_ ” Tao shouted. He leapt forward, out of the shadows and right into Jongin’s face, taking hold of his shoulders. “Stop, you have to _stop!_ ”

Blindingly green eyes met his, blank and devoid. Tao cupped Jongin’s face in both hands, gritting his teeth at the burning heat of Jongin’s skin and the sparks that shot across Tao’s fingers.

“Jongin,” he said again, sounding desperate and not caring. “It’s over, it’s done. You did it. You saved them.” Jongin didn’t answer, but his hand came up to wrap around one of Tao’s wrists, a bruising, inhuman grip. Tao winced. “Ardor, please. Let Jongin go, okay? You’re done now, you did what you came here to do. You can rest.”

Jongin, or Ardor, or maybe both, just stared at him.

Tao stroked his cheeks with his thumbs. “Come on, _please._ You’re scaring me.”

A pause. A blink. The light faded from Jongin’s eyes, leaving them dark brown once more. “...Tao?”

Relief made Tao’s smile overwide. “Hey. Welcome back.”

Jongin frowned. “I didn’t go anywhere.” His grip on Tao’s wrist had gentled, and as Tao let his hands drop, Jongin’s fingers slid down and hooked into Tao’s. He looked around. “Well, other than… down here.” His eyes were widening. “I… did I do all that?”

Tao squeezed his hand. “Stay here,” he said, and went to go see to the people who were chained.

Most of them were still out of it, glazed and slow to respond. All of them were terrified, cowering for lack of the ability to run, and they were still chained to the mage that Jongin had killed. Tao pulled out his lockpicks and got started.

It took a while. There were a lot of locks, and the victims had to be soothed, something Tao was not great at. Eventually, Jongin came over and helped him, reassuring them with his soft voice and performing cleansing spells that seemed to help, if only a little, to clear the fog of the drugs.

Eventually, they were all freed and gone, and Tao went to inspect the other bodies. The slavers were clearly all Tevinter, which was not a surprise. The three who had sold the slaves were dwarves, which _was_ a surprise - what the hell were dwarves doing, getting involved in this?

Tao robbed them all before he pushed their bodies into the sea. It wasn’t as if they’d need the money anymore.

When he stood, finished, he found Jongin on his knees next to the mage. He was crying.

Tao frowned. “Jongin?”

“I didn’t recognize him in time,” Jongin whispered. “I killed him, just because he was trying to get me to stop.”

Shit. Tao went over to him and knelt at his side. “Did you… know him?”

Jongin nodded. “Emile,” he said, choked. “He’s from the Circle. He shouldn’t have even _been_ here.” He covered his face. “I didn’t recognize him,” he sobbed, muffled by his hands. “I didn’t think, I just… Oh, Maker, what have I done?”

Unable to say anything to console him, and unsure what else to do, Tao awkwardly clasped Jongin’s shoulders. Jongin turned in towards him immediately, his sobbing getting worse, and they ended up kneeling in each other’s arms, Jongin crying his heart out on Tao’s shoulder.

It was quite a while before Jongin calmed down enough that Tao felt he could encourage him to his feet. “Let’s go home,” he said. “There’s nothing more to do here, come on.”

They took the Undercity back to Tao’s neighborhood, and once they were back aboveground Tao kept them in the shadows, so Jongin wouldn’t have to show his tearstained face in public. Jongin clung to him the entire way, and Tao tried to keep his own emotions under control for Jongin’s sake, but internally his thoughts were rioting.

If Tao hadn’t hesitated, if he’d stopped Jongin from going or at least gone after him faster - fuck. No. He couldn’t blame himself for this. He wasn’t responsible for what Jongin had done, or what Ardor had done in Jongin’s body. He _couldn’t_ be.

But he _felt_ responsible.

And whether or not Jongin had killed an innocent by accident, the fact remained that he’d still _saved_ almost a dozen others from a horrible fate. Tao told him so, repeatedly, but he didn’t think Jongin was really absorbing that right now.

They managed to get safely into Tao’s tenement, and Jongin collapsed all over again. Not knowing what else to do, Tao held him, and let him cry, and silently went over the afternoon in his mind, thinking of all the little things he might have done differently, all the ways he could have prevented this.

It was a quiet, somber night. Jongin eventually cried himself out, and Tao left him huddled in a blanket in the middle of Tao’s bed while he prepared a simple supper and brought it to him.

When he set the plate down, Jongin looked up at him, red-eyed. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have - what I said to you earlier. That wasn’t fair. You are _anything_ but a coward.”

Tao tried to smile. “I appreciate the thought,” he said, “but you were right. I didn’t want to get involved. Slavers scare the fuck out of me.” He plopped onto the bed, sitting next to Jongin hip-to-hip.

“But you came after me anyway,” Jongin said. “Thank you. If you hadn’t come, I might have…”

They were both silent.

“Jongin, I…” Tao stopped, and tried again. “Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” Jongin’s eyes widened, and Tao immediately rephrased. “Sleep in the bed, instead of on the floor, I mean. Just… because it’s warmer. And less dirty.”

Jongin’s eyes dropped to his plate. “I can’t believe…” He exhaled. “Tao. I don’t deserve you.”

“You are only saying that because you have criminally low expectations of how you should be treated,” Tao said, and he was only half joking. “Don’t… don’t thank me. I’m just trying to be, I don’t know. Decent. To you.” He met Jongin’s eyes. “Basic decency is pretty much all I can offer, and I’m not really very good at that sometimes either, but. I’ll try.” He cupped Jongin’s cheek. “Today has been rough. Stay here with me, tonight. Maybe it’ll help us both.”

Slowly, Jongin nodded. Tao smiled at him, and Jongin attempted to return the smile, a bare shadow of its usual brightness.

He turned his body, cuddling closer to Tao’s side, and silently ate.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It was a little strange to feel the wind in his hair after a week of the same stone room. Sehun pushed his hand through the long strands, grimacing at the oily texture. He needed a bath very badly - he hadn’t been allowed to bathe for the entirety of his confinement.

The buzz of lyrium song was very strong, today. Sehun, like all fully initiated members of the Order, could hear lyrium in the bodies of other Templars. Most times, the song was faint, muffled, a constant background noise that they all learned to tune out. Today, though, it was _loud._ Was that because Sehun was sensitive today, still not fully recovered from his recent withdrawal?

Or was it simply because every knight had twice as much lyrium in their blood?

He’d just finished reporting in to Meredith, who was entirely displeased with him, but seemed to be too busy to really dress him down the way she obviously felt he needed. Sehun was itching now to get going, get moving, but he still had one more check-in required. Wrapping his greasy hair into a knot at the back of his head with a leather cord, Sehun made for the healer’s office.

To his surprise, not only was Yixing again on duty, but Baekhyun was there with him, talking in low tones. Both of them looked up when Sehun came in, their conversation halting.

“You look like shit,” Baekhyun said frankly.

“Thanks,” Sehun retorted. They both grinned at him, and Sehun did his best to smile back, thankful just to see the faces of people who actually liked him. Yixing motioned for him to sit, washing his hands in the basin. Sehun did so, glancing at the roster posted to the wall as he went. “Isn’t Alain supposed to be on duty?”

Yixing didn’t look up. “He’s not feeling well,” he said, with a crispness that told Sehun not to inquire further. “I’m covering his shift.”

As Yixing began examining Sehun, Baekhyun leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. “How bad was it?” he asked, quiet.

Sehun met his eyes. “You want the truth?” Baekhyun nodded. “Awful. The confinement wasn’t so terrible, just really boring, but the lyrium comedown…” Yixing and Baekhyun exchanged a glance, and Sehun leaned forward. “What?”

“I’m not surprised, that’s all,” Baekhyun said, uncharacteristically serious. “A lot of the knights, especially the junior ones, had bad comedowns this week. Verne was in here yesterday getting treatment because he’d clawed his own arms until they bled, and Ruvena had to be chained to her bed to keep her from hurting herself.”

“Maker’s _balls,_ ” Sehun muttered.

Tilting Sehun’s face up, Yixing examined his eyes and mouth with a light touch. “The older knights handled it better,” Yixing commented. “More tolerance, I suppose. And the officers didn’t seem to have a comedown at all.”

“This week has been one long shit-show,” Baekhyun grumbled. “Between the doubled lyrium and the break-out, everyone’s on edge. I think I’ve broken up six fights in the past three days. Most of the recruits are keeping their heads down, and some of the apprentices are just locking themselves in their rooms and refusing to come out entirely.”

“Alright, you’re cleared,” Yixing said. “You haven’t taken your second dose yet, have you?” Sehun shook his head - it had been close, but he’d managed to abstain. “Good. You’ll probably need to take it tomorrow, I assume, but spacing the doses out should prevent another comedown.”

As Sehun stood, Baekhyun shifted against the desk. “Honestly, this week has made me glad I’m not technically a knight,” he said. “I really don’t want to know what it feels like to be on that much of the blue stuff. There were days when it seemed like Xing and I were the only sane ones in the entire fucking Gallows.”

“The comedown is terrible,” Sehun agreed. “But lyrium is necessary. Everything good requires some kind of sacrifice.”

Baekhyun did not look convinced, but Sehun didn’t bother trying to argue it. Baek still had years to go on his probation, so it would be a while before the issue came up in any meaningful way for him.

“So Jongin still hasn’t been found,” Baekhyun said, changing the subject. Sehun looked up at him sharply. “I heard his phylactery was one of the ones that was destroyed. Wonder what Karras is going to do about that.”

Yixing snorted softly. “Not having phylacteries didn’t stop him from hunting down Grace and Alain and all the other Starkhaven mages who ran away a few years ago,” he pointed out. “He tracked them the old-fashioned way.”

Wonderful. Sehun reflexively put his hand over his chest, where the locket sat inert against his sternum. He saw both Yixing and Baekhyun follow the motion with their eyes - Baekhyun curious, and Yixing knowing.

Clearing his throat, Sehun dropped his hand. “Hey, Xing, can I… ask you something?” He glanced at Baekhyun. “Do you know… if a mage gets…” He had to word this carefully. “If a mage were to… succumb. Become an abomination. Would their phylactery still work, or would it consider them dead?”

Judging by Yixing’s expression, he had not been subtle enough. Sehun held back a wince. Shit.

“A normal phylactery is a very strong blood magic enchantment,” Yixing said, as careful as Sehun had been. “So those would still be able to track a mage, even after they had become an abomination. But most other types of tracking are not that strong.” He raised an eyebrow meaningfully. “Abominations’ bodies are twisted and changed, their souls are ripped away. Anything less than a fully-functional phylactery wouldn’t hold a connection under those circumstances; it would likely cease functioning if the mage were to turn.”

Okay. Alright. That was… good. “Thank you,” Sehun said. “I should get going.”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” Baekhyun said incredulously, looking between Sehun and Yixing. “What the hell are you two talking about? And don’t play dumb, neither one of you is particularly subtle.” Sehun and Yixing exchanged a look, and Baekhyun crossed his arms, annoyed. “Seriously. Spit it out.”

Did Sehun trust Baekhyun with this secret? As a recruit, he wasn’t quite as entrenched in the politics yet, and Sehun knew he sympathized heavily with mages - his relationship with Yixing was proof enough of that. But if he was wrong, and Baekhyun decided to use this against him…

He decided to take the risk. Reaching into his shirt, Sehun pulled out his locket and showed it to Baekhyun.

“Before Jongin’s phylactery was given to Karras, I asked Yixing to help me make this,” Sehun whispered. “There’s a little scrap of cloth soaked in the blood from Jongin’s phylactery sealed inside it.”

Baekhyun’s eyes widened. “You _tampered_ with his phylactery?” he hissed.

“It wasn’t enough to break the enchantment,” Yixing hurriedly assured him. “It might have weakened it, but only a tiny bit. And it’s a good thing I did it, right? Because now the original phylactery is gone, and this is all that’s left that can track Jongin. And Sehun has it, not Karras. You _know_ Sehun’s much more likely to show Jongin mercy,” he said, and it sounded almost pleading.

Glancing between them, Baekhyun bit his lip in consternation. “The officers don’t know you have that, do they?” he asked. “Not even Meredith?”

Sehun shook his head. “Not even Cullen. I could be expelled from the Order for tampering with a phylactery. So you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

Baekhyun nodded. “What can it do? It’s not the same as a regular phylactery, right?”

“It will warm up if Jongin is close,” Sehun said. “That’s why I was down at the vault last week. I felt that Jongin was in the Gallows and guessed why he would risk it.” Baekhyun’s mouth made an O of surprised realization. “But he had help. And he wasn’t exactly… himself.”

Yixing’s eyes widened. “Is that why you were asking if the enchantment would break? Has Jongin become an abomination?”

Closing his eyes, Sehun whispered, “ _Ma halani._ ” The locket flared to life, a pale, pulsing glow. “Not yet, I guess. See? It’s still connected to him.”

“What was that word?” Baekhyun asked. “It sounds Elven.”

“It is. It means, ‘help me.’” Yixing reached out and brushed his fingers over the locket. “So he’s alive and okay. But you’re worried he won’t be for long?” He looked up from the locket to Sehun’s face.

Sehun nodded, knowing his fear was scribbled on his face, despite his efforts to hide it. “He wasn’t entirely himself. I think a demon is plaguing him.” He sighed heavily. “Every morning I wake up and I think, this is it, he’s gone now. I almost don’t want to check, for fear that I’ll say the command word and… nothing will happen.”

“ _Ma sarrenas,_ ” Yixing said, and the locket went dormant. “A demon plaguing him, but he hasn’t succumbed? That poor boy, as if things have not been hard enough for him.” Shaking his head, Yixing went to the healer’s desk and pulled out parchment and a quill. “Here. You’re looking for ‘In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar’ by Brother Ferdinand Genitivi,” he said as he scribbled. “Volume… six, I think. Look up the story of Connor Guerrin. It’ll give you a place to start.”

He handed Sehun the parchment. It was written permission for Sehun to take materials from the enchanter’s library, which was normally restricted to the senior mages only.

“Yixing?” Baekhyun asked. “You know something?”

Yixing sighed. “Don’t ask,” he said, not unkindly. “There are things the Templars would rather you didn’t know.” He made a shooing motion. “Go on, you have a very busy week ahead. Try not to work yourself to death.”

“I’ll do my best,” Sehun said. Baekhyun clapped him on the shoulder and Yixing nodded gravely. “And, um… you two are being… careful, right?”

They both looked at him, half confusion and half alarm.

“I just mean… You haven’t been real subtle around me, at least,” Sehun said awkwardly. “It’s pretty clear that you have, um, some kind of relationship.” Yixing’s eyes got very big, and Baekhyun took a protective step forward, and Sehun held his hands up placatingly. “I won’t say anything, you know you can trust me, but, just, _please_ be careful. I’m glad you’re happy together, I just don’t want you to get into trouble because of it.” Maddox’s emotionless monotone rang in his head, a gruesome testament to what could happen.

Yixing took Baekhyun’s hand and squeezed it, and Baekhyun’s shoulders eased a little at his touch. “We’re being careful,” he said. “Some of the mages know, but only the ones we trust. None of the other knights know, except now you.” Sehun nodded solemnly. “Sehun… thank you. Baekhyun said we could trust you, but I wasn’t sure.”

That was fair enough. Sehun saluted, a Templar salute instead of the Ferelden salute he used with Cullen. “Your secret is safe with me,” he promised, and left the healer’s office.

Sehun knew he would begin his punishment duty the next morning. He’d be working double shifts, and still expected to put in time in the yards, which meant he was going to get little sleep and no time to himself for the next week.

He knew he should take advantage of this short respite in between punishments. He knew he should go to his comfortable, familiar room and crash in his comfortable, familiar bed, hoard as many hours of sleep as he could, while he could.

He did not. Tucking the locket back inside his shirt, Sehun left the healer’s office and started for the stairs up to the library.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao left Jongin peacefully slumbering in his bed, quietly getting dressed and heading up to Hightown to see if he could catch Charade. He found her - or rather, she found him - at their usual meeting place in front of the Chanter’s board.

“All alone this morning?” Charade asked, as she fell into step beside him. “Where’s your cutiepie friend?”

“Curled up in bed and dead asleep, I hope,” Tao said. “He had a long night.”

Charade waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Not like - Woman, take your imagination out of the gutter. A _bad_ night.” Jongin’s nightmares had woken Tao several times; he hadn’t realized how bad they actually were until he had to share a bed with them. “That isn’t the point, anyway. I was hoping you might be able to give me some information.” He lowered his voice. “It has to do with those caches of yours.”

Immediately, Charade sobered. “The caches? Why, what did you find?”

Realizing - somewhat belatedly - that the Hightown market was probably not the best place to be talking about this, Tao took Charade’s arm and tugged her towards the stairs. “One of your ‘friends’ has been leaving tips leading to slave hand-offs. Someone in this town is selling to Tevinter.” Her horrified expression told him she had had no idea of this. “We’ve run into two, so far. Same handwriting and wording, and the note is left in the same place each time.” He nodded discreetly towards the abandoned building where the Hightown cache was hidden.

Charade’s brow furrowed. “You know that probably means it’s some noble’s servant who’s ratting them out, right?” she said. “That cache is used almost exclusively by servants.”

“Yeah, that occurred to me.” They started down the stairs to Lowtown. “The first dealer was a Coterie woman I didn’t recognize. Short red hair, shaved from the ears down, bear paw tattoo on her forearm. Sound familiar?”

“Sure, that’s Merike. She’s newer, not native, I think she’s Nevarran by birth.”

“Well, she’s dead now. Not my doing, the deal went bad.”

“I can ask around, find out who she was dealing with. If she was alone it probably wasn’t a Coterie-sanctioned deal, so someone probably would be interested in the information.” Charade glanced around, an automatic instinct to check if they were being eavesdropped upon. “And the second dealer?”

“Three of them that time. Dwarves, probably Carta. A blonde female and two black-haired males, one with a beard and one without. Brothers, maybe.”

Charade pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Hmm. I don’t have as much contact with the Carta, I’ll have to ask around. Still, slaving is not usually their kind of racket.” They quieted as they passed the city guard standing outside the Lowtown gateway. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to cover their tracks, using anonymous third parties to make the exchanges. That screams ‘poncy nobleman’ to me.” 

“I know. They used drugs to keep the slaves docile, I’m going to see if I can follow up on that lead today.”

She eyed Tao curiously. “It’s not like you to get mixed up in something like this,” she said. “Is there some kind of reward here that I’m not seeing?”

Her tone stung. Tao crossed his arms defensively. “I’m not _completely_ mercenary, you know. I help people all the time.”

“Sure you do, but there’s usually something in it for you, too.” Taking in his expression, Charade cocked an eyebrow. “I know I can always rely on you if there’s a reward involved, but this sounds like the kind of thing that could get you very dead without any gain for you at all.”

“I don’t like slavers,” Tao snapped. “You willing to do me a favor, or does me asking make me too mercenary?”

Charade stopped, and pulled Tao up short as well, hooking a hand in his elbow. “Tao,” she said seriously, “I tease, but you’ve never promised me anything you didn’t deliver, and you’ve never, ever let me down.” Dark green eyes searched his. “If you need me, just ask.”

She seemed sincere, and Tao relaxed a little. Her comments had stung more than he really wanted to admit. “Lady Elegant mentioned three potion-makers in the city who might sell sense drugs,” he said, and Charade nodded, remembering the conversation. “I can go talk to Martin and Tomwise, but Solivitus makes shop in the Gallows courtyard. Considering my connection with Jongin and that altercation with the Templar the other night, I don’t think it’s wise for me to set foot over there for a while. Could you find out if he sold sense drugs to anyone recently? Enough to drug a dozen adults for several hours, at least.” He cocked his head, wracking his brain for any other pertinent details. “Um, this particular drug doesn’t seem to be as effective on a mage, if that helps.”

“I’ll find out. I don’t want slavers operating out of Kirkwall anymore than you do, Tao. You can count on me.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I know I can, I’m sorry. You’re a hell of a lot more honorable than I am.”

“Hah. Dunno about that. I try.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the postings yet, so I’m just going to warn you now. There’s a new gang operating out of Lowtown at night. Don’t know much about them, yet, but they’re not just going after easy targets.”

Tao scrunched his nose. “Another one? Ancestors’ saggy _tits,_ that’s annoying.”

“I have a bounty out on them, but no one’s risen to it yet. Anyway, watch your back, yeah? Keep that precious mage of yours safely behind locked doors at night. These guys are _nasty._ ”

It was sweet of her to warn him personally. “Thanks, Charade. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

She winked, clapped his shoulder, and then slipped away, blending into the increasing early morning bustle.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Punishment duty was exactly as hellish as expected. The second dose of lyrium - taken very carefully, rationed over two mornings instead of just one - gave Sehun the bodily strength and stamina to make it through two full duty shifts and a turn in the yards each day, but it left him vibrating with sickening energy, twitchy and snappish.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Baekhyun hadn’t been exaggerating much about feeling like the only sane Templar in the Gallows. Sehun was probably the only Knight who was pushing himself hard enough to burn off the extra energy; it seemed that most of the others had resorted to bullying mages or getting into fights to deal with the noise in their heads.

Meredith said they just needed to get used to the stronger doses, that the urge towards violence would fade over time. Karras said they were all just too weak to handle it, because after all, the officers weren’t having trouble. Cullen didn’t say anything, just broke up fights and assigned extra duties with his jaw clenched.

Sehun needed sleep, he knew, but the late nights were the only time he had to himself, and so for three nights in a row he found himself in the senior enchanter’s library, buried in books.

On the third night, very late, he finally found what he was looking for.

And so on the fourth night, so late it was nearly tomorrow, Sehun pulled on civilian clothes, grabbed an unmarked shield and a plain sword and sword-belt from the supply room, and left the Gallows, heading to Lowtown.

The streets were quiet, the shopfronts shuttered; only a few people were out on the streets. Sehun kept his head up and his pace quick, attempting to not invite trouble. 

He rarely left the Gallows this late, and had never risked coming into Lowtown at this hour. The quiet made him uneasy. Kirkwall’s reputation for violence was well-earned, and while he could defend himself if he needed to, he really was _not_ looking for a fight tonight.

As he reached the far side of the district, he stopped, put his hand over his chest, and closed his eyes briefly. The locket was warm, but the heat was faint - was he imagining it, or was he closer to Jongin?

He kept moving, heading in the general direction of where he had seen Jongin the week before. That night, he’d been on his way back from the alienage, where he’d questioned the residents about the events of the afternoon - much more gently than Karras had, the vile bastard. None of the elves had been able to tell him much, except that Jongin had indeed been there, but he’d disappeared before the Templars or anyone else could find him.

It had been sheer dumb luck that Sehun had been passing by that alley at just the right time. His locket had suddenly lit with heat, burning so brightly that Sehun had been afraid it would actually start to glow, alerting him to how close his quarry was.

Sehun headed for that same area now, and sure enough, the locket grew distinctly warmer. Jongin was somewhere close by, somewhere in this end of the district. Was this where he was living, now, in the ass-end of Lowtown? Was he alone, or was he staying with that… that thief?

He started to look.

Unfortunately, Sehun was hesitant to go knocking on doors at this hour, and the locket wasn’t particularly accurate. He was confined to glancing in windows and testing shopfront doors, searching back alleys and making notes of which hovels seemed the most likely to house criminals or fugitive mages. In this area, it was hard to tell; they were all pretty decrepit.

He was likely not going to find Jongin tonight, but he had to try. He _had_ to.

After a few minutes, Sehun became aware of footsteps, quiet but distinct, that not-quite-matched his own. He showed no reaction, but pretended to be looking around at the houses for something, while in reality he was looking in the shadows for any sign of movement.

There was nothing there.

He turned back to what he had been doing, but he could not shake the feeling that he was being followed. Something pressed against the edges of his awareness, not quite the same as a spell, but similar enough that he could feel it. A strange sort of… not-magic.

He was being stalked, and he had a pretty good idea just who might be stalking.

Sehun quickened his pace, changing direction randomly and often. The feeling followed him, never approaching but never ceasing. Eventually, Sehun realized the locket had cooled somewhat, and scowled. He’d been purposely herded away from Jongin.

Turning on his heel, Sehun resolutely headed right back the way he came, noting carefully at what point the change in the strength of the tracking spell around his neck became apparent. Maybe if he could narrow down the area? He started down a different side alley, alert for changes in the heat against his sternum.

He felt no changes in temperature, but he did feel a tall form materialize at his back, and a knifeblade appear suddenly at his throat. Sehun startled, reaching for his sword, but his arm was already twisted up behind him and held in a firm grip, too fast for him to react.

“Good evening, friend,” an infuriating, familiar voice purred in his ear.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” Sehun said, forcing his ire to retreat. He was here for Jongin’s sake, not to play games. “You are not nearly as subtle as you like to think you are.”

A chuckle. “You’re pretty good, I’ll give you that, Ser Knight,” Tao said. “You had me pegged within ten minutes.” Sehun scowled - had it really taken that long for him to notice? “What brings you to this part of the city, pretty boy? If you’re looking for a fight, I’m afraid you’re going to be a bit disappointed.” Tao was so close that Sehun could feel lips brush his ear as they stretched into a smile. “I don’t plan on giving you another chance to fight fair.”

That was because they both knew Sehun would win. Tao, unfortunately, was not an idiot. “Actually,” he said, “I was looking for _you._ I want to talk.”

A pause. “Is that so?” Tao asked, soft and suspicious. “What could you possibly need to say to _me?_ ”

Sehun shifted, testing. Tao’s grip on him was firm, but he could break it if he wanted to, and they both knew it. Sehun was likely considerably stronger than Tao when he _wasn’t_ on a double dose of lyrium.

He decided to remain held, just as a show of good faith, and relaxed minutely. “First, tell me if you know where Jongin is.”

Tao chuckled. He was close enough that it vibrated Sehun’s back, stirred his hair. “Why would I tell you that?”

“I know you have no reason to believe me,” Sehun said quietly. He had to work to keep a growl out of his tone - getting defensive was not going to help him. “I swear, on the bride of the Maker, that I mean Jongin no harm. I want to help him.”

A hum. “Does that mean so much to you, swearing upon Andraste herself? Or is it an empty vow?” Sehun stiffened, offended that Tao would dare to question his sincerity, and Tao laughed again. “Ah, I see. So honorable.” He adjusted his grip on Sehun’s wrists. “And you are out here _very_ late. Quite a risk. Alright, I’ll believe you for now.” The dagger brushed very lightly against Sehun’s throat. “Yes, I know where Jongin is. He’s in my bed, asleep.”

For a brief, horrible moment, Sehun saw red. He nearly ripped himself from Tao’s grip and ran the man through before he stopped himself, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to relax.

“Well, well,” Tao said softly. “And here I thought it was all one-sided. You’re as in love with him as he is with you, aren’t you?”

Sehun’s jaw dropped open, shocked into silence.

Tao laughed, throaty and rich and right by Sehun’s ear. “This is too precious,” he cooed. Sehun bristled at his tone. “Like something from a storybook! Oooh, I should sell this to the bards, they’d have a ball with it.”

Snarling, Sehun did rip out of Tao’s grip then, turning on him and slamming him into the wall with an elbow across his throat. “You _dare_ to -”

The knife flashed, suddenly pressed to the inside of Sehun’s jawline, a twitch away from slicing him open. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” Tao said, all humor gone from his tone. “I didn’t intend to offend your pride.”

Sehun slowly relaxed, and tried to calm his anxiously knotting stomach. Shit, he shouldn’t have done that. He stepped back, letting Tao drop. Ah, fuck, he hadn’t even realized he’d lifted the man entirely off the ground.

Tao cocked his head, studying Sehun carefully. He was dressed so darkly, his hair and his eyes equally dark, that he almost seemed to be a being of shadow himself, half-formed. The dagger was real, though, and held guardedly between them, glinting in the moonlight. “He does love you, you know,” he said, and it sounded serious, the most serious Sehun had heard the man be.

This night was turning into an emotional bronto ride. “Did he... tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to. He turns red any time I mention you. And Ardor wouldn’t have fixated on you the way it did, if Jongin wasn’t already looking.”

Ardor. Sehun latched onto that, because he really couldn’t deal with the other thing right at the moment. Just the _concept_ that Jongin might have feelings for him made him sick with hope. “Ardor, is that the demon?”

“Spirit. Yes. That is what it calls itself. Spirits tend to names themselves after the closest human idea they can find that embodies their existence, so I believe Ardor is a spirit of passion.” His eyes dropped down Sehun’s body, then dragged back up. “No wonder it was so interested in you.”

Sehun ignored that as best he could. His ears were reddening, but there was nothing he could do about that. “You know a lot about demons,” he said, taking a step to the side. Tao mirrored him, and they circled slowly around the point of the dagger. Sehun studied him, some pieces falling into place that had not before. Tao’s accent, his coloring, the healed-over piercing scars in his nose and ears, the way he seemed to meld into the shadows, as if by magic. He definitely wasn’t Kirkwaller, and if he wasn’t Andrastian either… “You’re a hedge witch,” Sehun guessed.

Pale teeth flickered in the dark, a flash of a smile. “Hah! You flatter me, Ser Knight. I’m no seer.” He cocked his head. “But my mother was, if you must know. I did pick up a few things in my childhood.”

That explained more than it didn’t. Tao must be from one of the few cultures left that practiced nature worship. Rivaini was Sehun’s guess, though he might be Chasind. It didn’t matter, in any case.

“You aren’t really just here to check that Jongin is _safe,_ are you?” Tao asked. He took a step closer, seeming to shed shadow as he went. “Or… Shit. You really are?”

The way he was looking right through Sehun’s eyes and into his soul made Sehun squirm internally. “He’s a friend,” he said, gruff. “The streets are not safe, and he’s got a demon - a spirit, whatever - in his head. I worry.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Tao said, but his tone had softened, just a touch. “You love him. He loves you, and you love him, and this is fucking ridiculous, how the _hell_ did I end up in the middle of this mess?” He seemed to be asking the sky, asking no one in particular. “Alright, loverboy, out with it. What is it you really want? Why are you here, looking for _me?_ ”

“I need your help with something,” Sehun said. “I found a -”

But Tao was no longer looking at him. His gaze had shifted over Sehun’s shoulder, eyes widening.

Instinctively, Sehun turned, his hand going to his sword.

There were four - no, _six,_ maybe more - armored, armed fighters, prowling hungrily down the alley. Weapons of all kinds glinted in the moonlight, soft footsteps on cobblestones echoed off the high building walls.

“Maker’s breath,” Sehun grumbled. The glazed, bloodthirsty look in their eyes left little doubt in Sehun’s mind of what they were there for, but he called out to them anyway. “Can I help you?”

Laughter, but no answer. Swords and knives were drawn, and Sehun drew his own in response, putting himself in the center of the alley. He glanced quickly behind himself, to check to be sure Tao was safely behind him, an instinct borne of years of being trained to protect.

Tao was gone.

Sehun turned back, snarling under his breath. Of course that thief would just fuck off at the first sign of danger. Spreading his stance, Sehun called out a warning. “This is not a good plan, my friends,” he said, knowing full well he would be ignored. Kirkwall was infamous for street gangs, constantly terrorizing the streets at night, and Lowtown was the worst. He should have known this would happen.

He pulled in a deep breath, and reached for the power that he could feel, just outside of sight. Lyrium warmed his veins, prepared to strike.

The gang charged. Sehun allowed them to get within four steps before he let the power loose, throwing out his arms and _exploding_ with a wave of magical force that knocked all but two of them flat. The two who were strong enough to keep their feet kept coming, one with a greataxe and one with daggers, and Sehun drew his sword to meet them.

With the first strike, Sehun knew this was not going to be an easy battle. He had no time for fear or panic, because the weight with which that warrior swung the axe was not insignificant, and the dual-wielder was _fast._ If he had been a normal warrior and not a Templar, he probably would have been overcome with the first salvo. As it was, he managed to knock the warrior off-balance, and twisted away from the dual-wielder just in time, remembering at the last second that he was not wearing armor and he couldn’t just _absorb_ strikes right now.

The dual-wielder recovered faster, and Sehun had to swing around to meet her, catching one strike with his shield and parrying the other with his sword. He saw the axe-warrior coming at him out of the corner of his eye, but there was a dagger aimed at his throat and he instinctively turned to block it, leaving himself open - 

Before he could take advantage of Sehun’s lowered guard, the warrior went down with a cry, a shadow materializing into a man on his back. Tao flashed Sehun the very briefest of grins and yanked his knives out of the dead man’s back.

Surprise made the dual-wielder hesitate. Sehun lashed out with his shield, smashing into her face. She dropped.

The rest were recovering, coming fast. “Why are they so determined to die?” Sehun grumbled, as Tao slid once more into the shadows. Now that he was looking right at the thief, Sehun could see the slight ripple of his form, the distortion of the air around him.

“No idea,” Tao said cheerfully, a disembodied voice in the shadows. “Welcome to Lowtown.”

The attack hit, and Sehun lost himself in the frantic monotony of battle. Years of training took him over, muscle memory kicking in when his mind was not quite fast enough. It was nasty and messy, but easier than it would otherwise have been, and Sehun knew that was because of the warm shadow that darted around him, striking at unprotected backs and necks, slicing at knees and ankles, distracting and terrorizing. It kept the lot of them off-balance, and that was all the advantage Sehun needed. He threw himself into the fight, relishing the physicality of it, if not the bloodshed.

Considering how many of them there were, the fight was brutishly short. Tao slit the second-to-last throat as Sehun pulled his sword out of the last body, and then they were standing together in the gore, bleeding and panting.

Tao’s grin was exhilarated. “You know,” he said, “this is much, much easier with a moving _wall_ to hide behind.”

“Glad to be of service,” Sehun muttered, leaning back against the wall to catch his breath. His arm was bleeding. He didn’t remember getting injured, and it barely hurt, the lyrium still singing in his blood and dulling the pain. He held it up to try and get a good look at the wound in the moonlight. “Who were they?”

“Not certain, but I have an idea.” Tao held out a bottle. Surprised, Sehun took it from him. A potion. Not a high quality one, but the gesture was surprisingly thoughtful, and it would save him from having to go to the healers and answer questions. Sehun nodded his thanks, and drank the potion down, sighing as the slash on his arm closed.

Tao was inspecting the bodies, rifling through their pockets and bags. Sehun watched him for a moment, not sure if he should be disgusted, or just impressed with the man’s practicality.

“Tao…?” Sehun asked. Tao glanced up, but didn’t stop his search. “Tell me the truth. Do you believe Jongin can be saved? That there's… enough of him left?”

Tao did pause, then. Looking up, Tao searched Sehun’s expression, looking for something. What, Sehun didn’t know.

He seemed to find it. “I do,” Tao said finally. “I wouldn’t let him stay with me, if I didn’t think so. But…”

Sehun stood up straighter. “But?”

Scrubbing a hand through his long hair, Tao made a face. “Jongin is still himself,” Tao said, and Sehun tried not to show the relief that poured through him. “But I am not certain how much longer that will remain the case.”

He actually looked worried, genuinely _concerned,_ and that made fear pound in Sehun’s ears more than maybe anything else could have. “What do you mean? Did something happen?”

“The spirit took him again,” Tao said. “Or - I think maybe Jongin _asked_ for the help.” His dark eyes were serious, his voice quiet. “He used the power towards a righteous end, but he couldn’t quite control it, and an innocent was killed in the chaos.”

Sehun’s eyes fluttered shut. He shouldn’t let his guard down around Tao, but the words struck him deeply, right to the core of his being. “Maker,” he whispered.

“I was able to bring him out of it,” Tao said, and Sehun opened his eyes again. “At this point, I honestly don’t even think the spirit intends any harm. It says that it wants to help Jongin, and I believe it. But this shook us both. I fear the spirit is starting to lose itself in his emotions.” He pulled something out of one of the attacker’s belt-purses, examined it, and nodded, satisfied. “I think Ardor has only lasted as long as it has because Jongin is… well, he’s Jongin.”

Sehun’s heart hurt. He knew exactly what Tao meant.

“But I don’t know how much longer it will last,” Tao said, as he put whatever it was in his own belt-purse. “I’ve already seen…” He sat back on his heels, meeting Sehun’s eyes frankly. The picture he made, bloodstained and kneeling in the moonlight, was striking. “Ardor is... _changing_ Jongin. They have to be seperated, or Jongin will be destroyed.”

Nodding, Sehun reached out automatically to give Tao a hand up out of the mud. “I know. And I think I’ve found a way to do it.”

Tao eyed his hand for a moment, then took it, allowing Sehun to pull him to his feet. “Is _that_ why you came here tonight?”

“It is. I did some research, and I found a situation similar to Jongin’s, where a mage was plagued by a demon but hadn’t yet become an abomination. In that case, the mage was a child, only nine years old, which might be why the demon wasn’t interested in taking its body over.” He pulled out a rag and started wiping the blood off his sword. “A group of powerful senior mages was able to send another mage into the boy’s dreams. There, the mage defeated the demon in combat, and freed the boy.”

“And you think this could save Jongin,” Tao said thoughtfully. “You may be right. Do you know the ritual?”

Sehun nodded. “I have it, I can copy it down before I return the book. It requires a minimum of three mages, more if they are not strong enough in their magic, and quite a lot of lyrium.” He met Tao’s eyes. “And it specifies that it is more likely to succeed if the demon doesn’t expect it.”

“Ah. That’s why you need me, then,” Tao realized. “To bring you Jongin, without telling him why.”

Sheathing his sword, Sehun spread his hands. “I’m afraid that isn’t the only thing I must ask of you,” he said. “If things were different - if Jongin had not left in the way he did, and the vault hadn’t been opened, and tensions weren’t so high - I would just ask First Enchanter Orsino for help. He loves his mages, I know he would come to Jongin’s aid if he could.”

“But the Knight-Commander would never let him, would she?” Tao guessed.

“No,” Sehun said miserably. “I fear that if I told Meredith of Jongin’s situation, she would simply have him killed. As of right now, no mages are leaving the Gallows without an explanation to her of where they are going and why, and a full Templar escort.” He took a deep breath. “So I need to find mages outside the Circle who are willing to help.”

Sheathing his knives, Tao crossed his arms and regarded Sehun skeptically. “How do I know this isn’t just a plot to help you round up apostates?”

“You don’t, I suppose,” Sehun said. “But you’re the one who told me I’m in love with him. Do you believe that, or not?”

Tao laughed, more of a bark than the silken chuckles he’d tossed around earlier. It sounded much more real. “Alright, I can’t argue with that,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, you copy the ritual, get your hands on the lyrium, and wait for my message. Alright?”

It was simple enough. “I will.”

“Good.” Tao flapped a hand at him dismissively. “Now get out of my district, before the guards come to see what this ruckus was about.”

“Rude.” But he’d gotten what he came for, and he really should get some sleep, so as much as he wanted to beg Tao to take him to see Jongin right now, Sehun decided to let it go. Tao’s allyship could actually be very valuable to him; he needed to cultivate it. “Tao… really, thank you.” He saluted, Ferelden style. “Please protect him.”

Tao raised an eyebrow. “Jongin can protect himself,” he said. “Get out of here, soppy. You’ll see him soon, I’d wager.”

Sehun obeyed, and headed back to the Gallows.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee).


	6. Chapter 6

Jongin’s dream was filled with hands.

Sometimes they were Sehun’s hands, holding him close, smoothing down his flanks, cupping his cheeks with long fingers splaying around his ears to tangle in his hair. Sometimes the lips on his neck belonged to Sehun, too, and the heat pressed to his back.

Sometimes they were Tao’s hands, pinning him down, squeezing his ass, fingers entwining with his own. When the lips belonged to Tao, they came with teeth, nipping at his skin as they rocked together.

Sometimes, there was more than one set of hands on Jongin’s body, and he writhed between them, helpless with pleasure. He was still feeling those hands on him, so real, when his mind came back to awareness. Slowly waking, his dream faded, leaving behind languid arousal. Jongin shifted luxuriously, basking in the feeling.

“Someone had good dreams.”

Jongin looked back over his shoulder, and found Tao watching him, sleepy-eyed but smiling, his head propped up on his elbow. Heat crawled up Jongin’s cheeks, until he was burning from eyebrows to ear tips to collarbone. Tao’s smile widened, and his hand landed on Jongin’s hip. Not moving, not squeezing, just there, like a weight, suggesting what else he might do with it.

It had been a few days, now, since Tao had originally invited Jongin to share his bed. Jongin had not really expected to become this comfortable with it this quickly, but he didn’t exactly mind it. The bed was much more pleasant than the floor, and it made him feel less like an unwelcome guest. And Tao was very warm.

Averting his eyes, Jongin forced a yawn, stretching out. His spine curved, and his rear just barely brushed Tao’s body, and he felt - oh.

Maker.

“Mmm.” Tao rolled, draping himself half onto Jongin’s body. Jongin blushed harder but let him, resting his hand on Tao’s around his stomach. “You know, I used to hate sharing a bed with anyone. You make it surprisingly appealing.” He buried his face in Jongin’s shoulder. “You’re so cuddly,” he mumbled, directly into Jongin’s skin.

Laughing softly, Jongin curled around Tao’s form. It felt good to be held. It felt good not to wake up with his heart pounding in fear.

 _You’re welcome,_ Ardor whispered.

Jongin froze, the lovely moment shattered.

_I’ve upset you._

No, it wasn’t that - yes. Yes, it was upsetting, to know that another being, for bad reasons or good, had been meddling with his subconscious. Jongin sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face.

 _If it helps,_ Ardor said, _I didn’t have to dig very far to find this one. I just moved it to the forefront of your mind. It was much better than the dream you were having._ Flashes of Jongin’s usually nightmares played behind his eyelids - rough hands on his face, bruises on his knees and lips, Karras’s jeering laughter.

Folding his arms around himself, Jongin stared at nothing. He would much, much, _much_ rather dream about Sehun and Tao than about Karras. But was the price worth paying?

Warm arms slid around his waist, and a broad chest pressed to Jongin’s back. “Hey, Ardor,” Tao murmured, “can you maybe let him wake up first, before you start bothering him?”

Startled, Jongin turned his head. Tao’s face was very close, chin resting on Jongin’s shoulder. “How did you know?”

“You make faces when you talk to it,” Tao said, smiling. He squeezed Jongin lightly. “What’s wrong, what is it saying?”

They hadn’t really spoken a lot about Ardor yet, and Jongin suddenly really wanted to talk about it. Even if Ardor could hear. “It was messing with my dreams,” Jongin confessed. “It made them… Good.”

Tao’s chin slid outward, balancing on the very edge of Jongin’s shoulder so he could get a better look at Jongin’s expression. “It took away your nightmares?” he guessed.

“Yeah, and I just…” Instinctively, Jongin leaned closer into Tao’s arms. “How long before I can’t tell where I end and Ardor begins?” he whispered.

Black eyes studied him. “...I don’t think any of us knows,” Tao said. “Not even Ardor, probably.” Jongin sighed, and Tao readjusted, moving to sit at Jongin’s side instead of behind him. He kept his arm around Jongin’s shoulders, though, for which Jongin was grateful. “My mother invited spirits into her body to learn from them, to get guidance for herself and our community,” he said, and Jongin nodded, because Tao had mentioned that a few days ago. “Almost always, they were spirits of wisdom that she called, and they did not care for the mortal world, they had no interest in staying. The longest one stayed for a week. I’ve never seen what happens when a spirit stays with someone for longer than that.”

 _Wisdom was always single-minded,_ Ardor commented. _It was never very good at seeing the potential in mortals._

Oh? Was that why Ardor was still crowding in Jongin’s mind? Because it saw Jongin’s _potential?_

_Would you believe me if I said yes?_

No.

An internal chuckle. _Then clearly, my work is not yet done,_ Ardor murmured.

“Ugh.” Tao looked at Jongin curiously, and Jongin scowled. “Ardor is being coy,” he explained.

“Ah. Well, I suppose you’ll just have to ignore it for now.” Tao pressed a warm, soft kiss to Jongin’s temple, and got off the bed.

He kept talking, but Jongin was no longer listening, because the rush of confused, delighted emotions that were now streaking through his mind blocked out literally everything else - including Ardor, who all but cowered under the onslaught.

_I am not cowering. I just… wasn’t expecting to feel all of those things, all at once._

Yeah, neither was Jongin.

Tao had stopped talking and was looking at Jongin curiously. “Hey, are you okay?”

Jongin blinked at him. “You kissed me,” he said, as if that was an explanation.

Tao frowned for a second, confused. Then, his eyes widened. “Oh, shit, I didn’t think about - Andrastians aren’t so casual about that kind of thing, are they? Did I offend you? I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to - ”

Rather than continuing to let him babble, Jongin lurched to his feet. “Do it again,” he demanded.

Snapping his mouth shut with an audible click, Tao studied Jongin’s expression. “...Are you sure?”

Jongin stepped directly into Tao’s arms, and tilted up his face. “Yes.”

Tao smiled, pulled him close, and kissed him.

His mouth was warm, and his embrace was firm, just strong enough that Jongin could tell that he meant it. The kiss was gentle at first, sweet; it took a few moments before Jongin tilted his head and moved his lips, and Tao’s hand crept up his back to cradle his neck.

 _Oh,_ Ardor whispered.

Never been kissed? Jongin thought giddily.

Ardor hadn’t. Ardor hadn’t known it was like _this._

Jongin melted a little closer, relaxing into Tao’s arms, and wrapped his own around Tao’s bare back, scratching lightly at his skin. Humming his appreciation, Tao pulled Jongin’s bottom lip in between his own and worried at it, making Jongin giggle into his mouth.

Pulling back for air, Tao rested his forehead against Jongin’s. “Well,” he said breathlessly. “ _That’s_ going to be addictive.”

Snuggling into Tao’s arms, Jongin sighed. “Good.” He hadn’t felt this calm in ages.

“Is this… are you…” Jongin looked up, and Tao cocked his head. “Have you done a casual physical relationship before?”

“Sure,” Jongin said, and Tao relaxed a little, obviously relieved. “You try not to form too many attachments in the Circle, but when you spend most of your life locked in an enclosed place with a single group of people…”

“Ah. So this is common for mages?”

“It’s certainly not unheard of.” Jongin pressed a kiss to the side of Tao’s jaw, pretty much just because he could. It was a little scratchy - Tao needed a shave. “I can tell you about it, if you want?”

Fingers combed through his hair. “Later, I think,” Tao said. “We need to visit the bathhouse today. And then, I was thinking of going to talk to a contact about those drugs the slavers are using on their captives.”

Startled, Jongin pulled back a little to look at him. “You’re going to try and figure out who is behind it?” he said, incredulous.

Tao shrugged, and didn’t meet his eyes. “It might not go anywhere,” he muttered self-consciously. “But it’s worth following up on, I guess.”

Beaming, Jongin kissed him again, more enthusiastically this time.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

This time, Tao caught up with Charade as she was picking up dinner in the marketplace. He sidled up beside her, bumping his hip against hers and wrapping an arm around her waist.

He was hoping to startle her, but no such luck; she leaned into the touch as if she’d always known he was there. “Well, good evening there, serah.”

Tao pulled out the folded bit of parchment he’d lifted from the dead body the night before and dangled it in front of her face. “Your elusive street gang calls themselves the ‘Followers of She.’ They’re holed up in some abandoned buildings on the north side of town.”

Blinking, Charade took the paper from his hands. “How did you - shit, Tao, you didn’t try to go _after_ them, did you?”

She unfolded the parchment and scanned over the bloodstained scrawl as Tao said, “They came after _me,_ but luckily I wasn’t alone. You were right about them being a nasty bunch.” He shook his head, remembering the brutal fight from the night before. “They weren’t trying to rob or to kidnap or anything else profitable, they were flat-out looking to kill. No demands, no threats, nothing.”

Wrinkling her nose, Charade made a disgusted noise. “Ugh. When will assholes like that learn that they can’t just come into _my_ city and mess shit up?” She pocketed the parchment, and pulled out her belt-purse. “Thanks, Tao, this helps a lot. Let me just -”

Tao put a hand over hers before she could pull out her coin. “I’m not looking for a reward, Charade.”

She stared. “Are you… are you dying?” Miffed, Tao shoved her lightly. She laughed, but said, “Seriously, is this because of what I said the other day? You don’t need to pretend to be all noble, Tao, I had a bounty out and you brought me a lead. That gets you a reward. It’s how the system works.”

“You trade in favors as much as money,” Tao said, “and I need to ask you one. And it… might be kind of a big one.”

Curious, Charade tugged him over into an alley, away from the street and any prying eyes. “Alright,” she said, “lay it on me.”

“I’m looking for apostates. At least three of them.” Charade’s eyebrows raised, but Tao kept going, his voice barely above whisper. “I have to perform a very complex and possibly dangerous magical working. I can’t go to the Circle, I need a fuck-lot of power, and I need it _discreetly,_ alright?” He bit his lip. “It’s - it’s important.”

Her eyebrows climbing still higher, Charade said, “Does this have to do with your mage?”

Damn her. Tao should have known she’d see right through him. “Yeah. He’s… he’s in danger. I need to get him help.”

By this point, Charade’s eyebrows had completely disappeared behind her fringe. “That explains why you can’t go to the Circle,” she said. “Alright, I think I know of someone to ask. No guarantees, but I’ll try to set up a meeting. That work for you?”

Tao deflated, relieved. He’d been holding his breath, and hadn’t even realized it. “Yes. Thank you. I knew you would know someone who could do it, you know everyone.”

Turning to face him, Charade crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Tao… ”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just… I think Jongin’s a good influence on you.” She grinned. “You should keep him.”

That made him laugh, and maybe even blush, not that he would ever admit that out loud. “Yeah. I’d… I’d like to.” Waking up in Jongin’s arms for the last three days had made him realize just how much he wanted to _keep_ him, but that had to wait. “I need to make sure he’s safe, first.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if I can set up that meeting,” she said. “In the meantime, here.” She pulled a different parchment from her pack, this one much less blood-stained. “I spoke with Solivitus, and Martin too since I had to go see him for something else. Solivitus doesn’t sell the kind of drugs you’re talking about - he’s too law-abiding for that - but Martin does. This is everyone he’s sold them to in the past few weeks.” She raised an eyebrow. “And guess who’s on the list?”

Tao opened it, and skimmed. “Merike,” he realized. “The Coterie woman from the first drop?”

“Yep. Martin said he thought it was pretty odd, since the Coterie keeps their own mixers in-house. If she was buying outside product, then it definitely wasn’t a Coterie job.”

He tucked the parchment into his bag. “You are a shining beacon of hope in this dismal city.”

Laughing, Charade rolled her eyes. “I try. I’ll send that message soon alright? Be ready.”

Patting his shoulder, she slipped back into the market. Tao followed more slowly, heading back home to Jongin with a little spring in his step.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The ritual, painstakingly copied from the spellbook word-for-word, was tucked underneath his bed. So was the unmarked shield and swordbelt from the supply room that he had used before, and some unmarked armor, lighter than his usual plate but much less obtrusive.

All Sehun needed was the lyrium.

If he knew how long he had to get it, he would just ration out his weekly doses, saving a little bit each week until he had the stash he needed. But he needed a _lot_ of lyrium for this - more than he was normally allotted in two months - and he had no idea how soon Tao would contact him.

That was why he was currently kneeling outside of Knight-Commander Meredith’s office with the lockpicks he hadn’t touched in six years.

It took a moment. He was very much out of practice, and the locks in the Gallows were not the newest as a general rule, but eventually it popped open and he slipped inside.

It was early evening, and Sehun had just gotten done with his very last punishment shift. He had a night off for the first time in two weeks. Sehun rather felt it was a measure of just how deeply he cared about Jongin that he was spending it breaking into his commanding officer’s office.

The spare keys were kept in a small locked jewelry box a side table near the door. Sehun knew that because he’d seen Meredith putting said keys away, one night when she’d been returning from the dispensary just as he was arriving to make a report. The lock on the jewelry box was cheaper than the lock on the door, but more delicate; it took Sehun another long moment to get it open. He kept as quiet as possible, listening for any sounds from the hallway, even though he knew that Meredith and all the other officers were down in the yard tonight, running combat testing with the recruits.

The key ring was right where he expected it to be, underneath a letter with an unfamiliar orange wax seal. He carefully tied the keys together with a piece of twine so they wouldn’t jingle, and dropped them in his belt purse.

Sehun didn’t lock the jewelry box again, just in case he had to get back into it in a hurry, but he did take the time to lock the door to Meredith’s office. Then, he headed down the stairs, all the way to the sub-basement.

This was the dangerous part. If he was caught in Meredith’s office, he would be questioned, likely punished, but if he was caught in the lyrium dispensary he would be expelled from the Order at best. Sehun was very, very cautious as he came down the stairs, listening for any sign of life.

Of course, for all his caution, the moment he had the dispensary door open, he heard voices coming down the stairs. There was nowhere else to hide, so Sehun ducked into the dispensary itself, closing the door behind him as silently as possible. He pressed his back to the wall, sinking down so that he was out of sight of the barred window in the door, and held his breath. 

The lyrium around him was locked away in heavy wooden chests, but there was so much of it that the lyrium-song chimed through his mind anyway, filling his thoughts. So distracted, it took too long for Sehun to recognize the voice, and even longer to parse out what was being said.

It was Baekhyun. “I really don’t like this,” he was saying. “It’s not that I don’t trust Thrask, but - ”

“Baek, what he’s doing is _good,_ it’s more good than anyone else in this damned Circle has managed.” That was Yixing. What were they arguing about? Why were they even down here? Frowning, Sehun tried getting closer to the door, straining to catch their words as they moved past him.

“He needn’t involve the Champion, though,” Baekhyun said. “That’s a really bad idea.”

“The Champion has been sympathetic to us in the past -”

“I _know_ he is, but -”

“ _But_ lately he’s been working for Meredith,” Yixing snapped. “Mages are dead by _his_ hand. We can’t trust that he is still sympathetic, I’m sorry, we just _can’t._ ”

Sehun really wished he could see their faces. What was this about? Had this happened while Sehun was in confinement? “The Champion would never have killed Huon and Evelina unless he had to, Xing,” Baekhyun was protesting, and - wait, really? Had Meredith genuinely been so desperate that she’d asked the Champion for help doing a Templar’s job? “If he says they were compromised, I believe it.”

“It’s _not_ a risk we can take, Baekhyun!” Their voices were getting further away now, nearly too distant to hear. “Thrask’s plan is solid. We just need to...”

He kept talking, but Sehun could no longer make out the words. He stood up straight and peered through the barred window.

They were… already gone?

Sehun blinked. Where had they gone? There was only one entrance or exit from this hallway, the stairs he’d come down. They’d come from that direction, walked down towards the phylactery vault, and just… disappeared.

Quickly and silently, Sehun opened the door and followed. It was a risk, an _enormous_ risk, but if there was another way out of this hallway…

The end of the hallway appeared solid. The vault doors were still sealed, and Baekhyun wasn’t an initiated Templar so he couldn’t have gotten them in there anyway. Where could they have _possibly_ gone?

Sehun searched everything he could think of. He ran his fingers over the door frames, he checked the floor tiles and the bricks in the wall. He tugged on the wall sconces, just in case one of them was secretly a switch. Nothing.

It was frustrating, even infuriating, but Sehun couldn’t spare the time to make a more thorough search. If he needed to, he could question Baekhyun later. Returning to the lyrium vault, Sehun picked one of the locked chests open.

The moment he opened the lid, the song of the lyrium became so loud, he actually winced and covered his ears. 

Shit, that was - that was _so much lyrium._

The chest held phials and phials of the stuff. There must have been enough in this chest alone to supply the entire Gallows for a month, and there were dozens of chests the same size stacked in the room. This was… _so_ much more lyrium than he had realized was kept in the Gallows.

Sehun ended up reaching for one of the leather pouches tucked away in the corner of the chest. He checked it quickly, just to be sure - yes, it was lyrium dust. He grabbed a few more, just in case, and made sure they were tightly tied off before he put them in his belt pouch. Lyrium dust was only marginally less poisonous than raw lyrium itself, having been only minimally processed; he _probably_ wouldn’t die from inhaling it but he wasn’t exactly sure what _would_ happen.

Hopefully, this was enough. Making certain to lock the dispensary behind him, Sehun crept back up the stairs.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao didn’t spend a lot of time in the Hanged Man. Drunken revelry and the awful swill that Kirkwallers passed off as whiskey were not his idea of a rousing good time.

Also, the Hanged Man was known to be the center of Varric Tethras’s empire, and Tao had decided early on to stay out of the way of _that._

Varric was a powerful figure in the Kirkwall underground, with ties into nearly every business and crime syndicate in the city. More honorable than most, according to the rumors, but definitely not someone to cross, and Tao had spent the last several years making sure no one with any real power noticed him, Varric included. He’d learned from a young age that it was just safer that way.

But Charade had sent Tao a message saying Varric could connect him with the mages he needed. So here he was, climbing the stairs up to the back rooms of the Hanged Man, and trying not to let his nerves show on his face.

He had the thought, brief and fleeting as he turned the corner, that he would feel better if Jongin was at his side. His new partner had a way of disarming the people he talked to - probably because he had the air of a lost puppy about him - and Tao would very much not mind having Jongin’s magic to back him right now, either.

But if Jongin knew what he was doing, so would Ardor. And Tao couldn’t risk that.

At the top of the stairs was a long, open room dominated by a huge table. Despite the fact that this was still technically a public space within the tavern, the decor changed abruptly here to be distinctly dwarven - heavy stone furniture, geometric patterns, sharp angles. Several people were already seated, playing cards, drinking, and laughing. Varric was at the head of the table, right in the center of it all, his rasping chuckle cutting through the laughter of the others.

Varric was a dwarf, which made him a bit unusual in Kirkwall. They weren’t particularly common this far north; the majority of them lived their entire lives underground, and the last active dwarven stronghold was on the other side of the sea. Dwarven topsiders were not unheard of, though, and almost all of those were merchants, smugglers, or both.

Ostensibly, Varric was a merchant, the scion of a dwarven house that had come topside near the end of the last age. He was not handsome, not in the way most people would consider, but he had an engaging manner and twinkling eyes that drew people in. He also had no beard, which made him unlike most other dwarves Tao had met.

What he lacked in facial hair, though, he more than made up for in chest hair. It was a surprisingly good look on him.

“Ahh, there’s our guest,” Varric called. The entire table - two men and a woman - turned to look at Tao. “You must be Charade’s friend. Come on, have a drink.” He gestured at the seat to his left, which had been sitting empty.

Wary, but trying not to show it, Tao approached, and nodded to Varric before he sat, not quite a bow. He wasn’t sitting with royalty, even if it kind of felt like it. “It’s kind of you to agree to meet me,” he said, as he settled into the chair.

Varric poured Tao a glass of something that smelled _very_ potent. “Glad you think so! It wasn’t me, though.” He set the glass down and jerked his thumb at the man sitting on his right side, across the table from where Tao now sat. “Hawke set all this up.”

Tao’s head jerked up at the name. Golden amber eyes met his, curious and amused. Bright, fire-red hair, well-made but simple clothes in Ferelden style, and a mage’s staff with a long spear-blade carried openly, fearless of repercussions. If all that wasn’t enough to identify him, the red war-paint smeared across the bridge of his nose like blood should have given it away.

Fuck. _Shit._ He’d been so busy looking at Varric, he hadn’t recognized Chanyeol fucking Hawke, the gods-be-damned _Champion of Kirkwall._

Chanyeol Hawke grinned crookedly at him, and winked. Tao’s jaw dropped.

Varric burst out laughing at his expression. “Shit, that never gets old. _Never._ ”

“I asked Charade to help me find a few non-Circle mages,” Tao mumbled. “I didn’t think… I didn’t even know she…” He met Hawke’s eyes. “Aren’t you, I don’t know, too busy to deal with some nobody’s problems?”

“Hah! You would think,” Varric said.

Hawke leaned back, rocking his chair onto its back legs as if it wasn’t made of stone and enormously heavy. “I live to deal with other people’s problems,” he drawled. His voice was quite deep, his accent noticeably Fereldan. “And Charade is family. I couldn’t refuse her.”

Wait. What? “Family?”

Varric grinned. “They’re cousins. Crazy, right?”

“Charade is _related_ to the _Champion of Kirkwall,_ and she never _told me?_ ” Tao spluttered.

“To be entirely fair,” a new voice said from his left, “they didn’t know it until only a few weeks ago.”

“And wasn’t my uncle surprised,” Hawke muttered, as Tao looked to see who had spoken.

It was the woman, dark of coloring and garish of dress, with extravagant gold jewelry. He hadn’t looked before, but her accent, the size and style of her earrings, the stud pierced through her bottom lip - 

She was Rivaini. The first Rivaini Tao had laid eyes on in literally years.

Her gaze softened when she took in his expression, the realization on his face. “Well met, countryman,” she said, in silken tones. “Let’s have your name.”

“Zitao,” Tao said, his full name rising to his lips despite the fact he hadn’t used it since he’d left his home. “Formerly of Ayesleigh. I, um. I go by Tao, here.”

She inclined her head. “Isabela, formerly of Llomeryn. You know who Varric and Hawke are. The silent one is Fenris.” She gestured at the elven man sitting across from her, next to Hawke. White-haired, green-eyed and dour-faced, the elf just barely dipped his head in greeting. “So you’re looking for mages, and you can’t go to the Circle. Tell us _that_ story.”

Tao hesitated. Hawke, he knew, had political ties to the government, to the city guard, to the Circle itself. Knight-Commander Meredith was the one who had given him the title of Champion, after all. But according to the rumors, he’d also never been held in a Circle, was raised and trained from birth by an apostate father, and had, as the story went, laughed in Meredith’s face when she’d dared to suggest that he turn himself over to the Circle.

He decided it was worth the risk. “I have a friend,” he said. “My, um. My partner. He’s recently… left, the Gallows.” He looked to Hawke, who nodded, knowing exactly what that meant. “He brought... _something,_ with him. He says it found him when he was taking his Harrowing, if you catch my meaning. We need help to… to get rid of it.”

“And by ‘it’,” the elf said, in a shockingly resonant voice for his slight stature, “you mean a demon.”

“Yes,” Tao admitted. “Well, a spirit, we think. He’s not an abomination, not the way that - It hasn’t taken him completely. But we’re worried that it’s only a matter of time.”

Varric frowned. “Is it even possible to evict a demon? I thought once they set up shop in a mage’s head, it was over.”

“Other cultures have known of ways for ages,” Isabela said. “Just because _your_ people never figured it out doesn’t mean no one has.”

“ _My_ people don’t even have mages,” Varric shot back.

“I meant _Andrastians,_ not dwarves,” Isabela retorted. “Rivaini seers have invited spirits into their bodies for generations. Usually the spirits can be asked, or convinced, to leave. It isn’t a sure thing, but it is possible.” Tao nodded, confirming this. “Demons are trickier, since they tend to have much more desire to manifest in the mortal world than spirits do, but even still, they can be driven off.” She turned to Tao. “You have a plan for this, I assume?”

Tao nodded. “I have an… acquaintance. Someone from my partner’s past, who cares about him. He’s found a ritual to send mortals into the Fade, to confront the demon directly.”

“I’ve seen such a ritual done before,” Hawke said, to Tao’s surprise. “But it requires power, a _lot_ of power. And I’m not about to let anyone open up a vein for this, so that means lyrium.”

“Blood magic won’t be necessary,” Tao assured him, thinking of the locked room in the basement of the Gallows and the crates upon crates glowing blue inside. “We can get the lyrium. We’ll just need the mages to perform the ritual. At least three, more if they aren’t powerful enough.”

Hawke dropped his chair back onto four legs, with a resounding _thunk._ “That’s easy enough, then. I’ll supply the mages, a safe place to perform the ritual, and insurance in case it goes wrong and the demon manifests.” He looked to Fenris on his right, and the elf nodded to him, grave. “You bring the victim and the lyrium. We can send you into your partner’s dreams, but from there, it will be up to you.”

Tao nodded. “That’s all I ask. Thank you.”

“Great!” Varric picked up the card deck on the table, split it, and shuffled with thick, dexterous fingers. “Care to stick around for a game, Tao? Maybe with you here, Broody won’t lose quite so pathetically.”

Fenris cracked the tiniest smile. “I beat him exactly once, and he’s still salty about it.”

The table laughed, and Tao agreed to stay, if only so that he could win some goodwill with the people who were going to hold Jongin’s future in their hands.

And maybe, if he was lucky, some of their coin, too.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Three days after Sehun stole the lyrium, the missive came. The day after that, Sehun reached the Hawke mansion just as the sun was setting.

He hesitated before knocking, glancing around. Chanyeol Hawke might be one of the most revered citizens of Kirkwall, but he was also by far the most notorious apostate in the city, possibly in the entirety of the Free Marches. Too rich, powerful, and well-connected for the Templars to touch, the fact that Hawke was allowed to run free instead of being bound to a Circle was a massive thorn in the Chantry’s side. Gossip ran rampant about him as it was, and snoopy neighbors were everywhere. If word got back to the Gallows that Sehun had been here…

Better not to spend the evening loitering on the man’s doorstep, then. Sehun knocked.

After a moment, the door opened. There was a person behind the door, Sehun saw a flash of a hand, but his attention was taken up by the _enormous_ dog in the doorway, snarling at him with jaws that could snap a man’s arm in a single bite.

Sehun knew they could, because he’d seen it happen. The dog was a mabari - a Fereldan war hound.

“Well met, ser,” he said to the dog. He bowed, crossing his arms over his chest in a Fereldan salute. “I hope I am not intruding?”

The dog’s demeanor immediately changed. It - no, _he_ \- perked up, his muzzle relaxing and head cocking questioningly. He hadn’t expected Sehun to know how to address him.

“I have come to see Messere Hawke,” Sehun said, keeping his tone very polite. “May I enter?”

“A Fereldan? Wasn’t expecting that.” Sehun squinted into the shadowy doorway at the man who had opened the door. His accent was _very_ Fereldan, and country besides. “You here for that… whatever they’re doing tonight?”

This wasn’t Chanyeol Hawke, was it? Sehun had never met the Champion, but he’d seen him from afar a few times, and this fellow was a bit too big for that. “Yes, I am,” he said.

“Alright, come in then,” the man said. Sehun looked to the dog, who took a few steps back, holding his head high, as if warning Sehun he would be watched.

It made Sehun smile. He’d missed having mabari around.

The Hawke estate was carved directly into the cliffside, just like every other home in Kirkwall, but unlike most, the inside was spacious and tastefully decorated, with imported marble floors and a grand staircase. As Sehun’s eyes adjusted, he turned to look at the man who had let him in.

He was a _big_ man, younger than Sehun had expected, with dark red hair. He was also dressed in full, heavy plate armor of a design Sehun had never seen before, and carrying a massive two-handed sword. The man moved further into the house, and Sehun followed.

“My brother will be down shortly,” the man said. Ah. That explained a lot. “Can I take your things, or… I don’t know, get you something to drink?”

The mabari went straight for the rug in front of the fireplace and sat, and Sehun blinked at the man. “This is one of the wealthiest households in the city,” he said. “Where are the servants?”

A wry laugh. “Chanyeol sent them all away for the night,” the man said. “He didn’t want them around during the ritual.” He held out his hand, and Sehun rather reluctantly gave up his shield and sword. As the man took his arms to the hangers on the walls of the foyer, Sehun went over to the fire and dropped to one knee in front of the hound.

Mabari were a big breed, but this one was particularly large and barrel-shaped, solid muscle under a short, sleek, red-brown coat. Intelligent dark eyes watched him warily - no fear, only caution - and pointed ears perked up in Sehun’s direction.

“You’re a very fine specimen,” he told the dog. “I haven’t spoken with a mabari since I was a teenager. How do you like Kirkwall?” The dog barked, and pawed the rug once. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel about it, too.” He extended a hand, letting the hound sniff him. “May I pet you, Ser Hound?”

The mabari immediately shoved his massive head under Sehun’s hand, maneuvering until Sehun’s fingers were right between his ears. Chuckling, Sehun gave him a good scratch.

“Well,” a deep, unfamiliar voice said. “This is charming.”

Sehun looked up. At the top of the stairs, leaning on the railing, was none other than Chanyeol Hawke himself, dressed in a casual but very expensive dressing robe in black and gold and with his trademark red stripe of paint across the bridge of his nose. He carried no weapon, his posture was completely relaxed, but magic oozed from him so strongly, Sehun could feel it from the other side of the room, buzzing like a warning against his senses.

Swallowing hard, Sehun stood. Maybe he should have waited until Tao and Jongin got here, and come in with them.

“My name is Sehun, messere,” Sehun said, in the most respectful tone he could muster. He took a chance and gave a Ferelden salute with his bow. If the man kept his mabari after all these years, maybe he was sentimental for home in other ways, too. “I apologize for the intrusion. I was to meet Tao here?”

“I figured.” Chanyeol Hawke sauntered down the stairs and leaned against the newel post. He moved like a warrior, not a mage. “He neglected to tell me that the third person was a Templar, though.”

Ah. Sehun had no idea how the Champion could tell - it wasn’t as if he was wearing his armor, or carrying his shield even at the moment - but that explained the thinly veiled hostility. “I am not here on official business, messere,” he promised. “I am here for my friend, and nothing else.”

“Is that so?” Sehun nodded. “Then I suppose you are welcome in my home,” the mage said. “I'm Chanyeol. You can call me Hawke, if you like, everyone else does. And that’s Monster.” He nodded to the dog.

“A pleasure to meet you both.”

“Oh good, you’re down.” The man who had opened the door, Chanyeol's brother, came back from the front room. “I think that’s my cue to get lost.”

Chanyeol’s brow compressed, and he took a step forward. “Carver - ”

“I don’t want to be around your big nasty ritual any more than your servants do, brother,” Carver Hawke said. “And my officers will be looking for me. I would say it’s been fun catching up, but…” He smiled, crookedly.

Chanyeol smiled back, and it became instantly obvious that they were brothers. It was a very distinctive smile. “Alright, that’s fair enough. Next time, come visit me _without_ having to be kidnapped first, hmm?”

Laughing, Carver clapped him on the back. They were the same height, but Carver’s shoulders were half again as wide as Chanyeol’s, even though he was clearly the younger of the two. It was kind of endearing, actually. “I make no promises.” He came over to pat the mabari’s head, nodded to Sehun, and then he left. Chanyeol walked him out, and Sehun didn’t try to eavesdrop on their conversation, he just kept petting the dog.

Eventually, Chanyeol came back, and Sehun got to his feet, feeling more than a little awkward. This was the most powerful private citizen in Kirkwall, in more ways than one.

If Chanyeol was bothered by Sehun’s nerves, he didn’t show it. “You’re a bit early, the others won’t be here until after sundown.” He gestured to the library, through the doorway to the right. “Have a seat. I haven’t had a chance to talk to another Fereldan in years.”

So Sehun sat. Hawke poured him a tankard of Chasind mead, something Sehun hadn’t tasted since he was actually a child. It was a lot more palatable now that he had an alcohol tolerance, and reminded him strongly of home. Monster the mabari trotted over and flopped onto the floor at Chanyeol’s feet, completely relaxed now that he’d decided Sehun was not a threat to his master.

“Your face paint,” Sehun realized, thinking about how connected Hawke seemed to his roots despite his high status in a foreign country. “The people here all call you a savage behind your back, wearing war paint at all times. But it’s just kaddis, isn’t it?”

Hawke grinned. It made the swipe of red across his nose crinkle.

Shaking his head, Sehun said, “All these people think you’re declaring war on them, when really you’re just making it easier for your dog to find you in a crowd. Incredible.”

“They think we’re all barbarians anyway,” Chanyeol said. “Why not encourage the reputation?” He dropped his tankard to the table and cocked his head. “Your accent sounds city.”

“Denerim. Yours sounds country.” Chanyeol’s accent reminded him of Cullen’s, rounder around the vowels than the people Sehun had grown up around.

“You caught me, I’m a farm boy through and through.” He took another swig. “Lothering, born and raised.”

Shit. “I’m sorry,” Sehun said. Lothering was in the south - that entire area had been completely destroyed by the Blight. “Did you get out before…”

Chanyeol shook his head. “Not before I lost my sister,” he said softly. “Carver’s twin. We were apostates, she and I, and we couldn’t risk travelling in the same group as the Chantry sisters or the Templars. My family waited too long to leave, and the horde caught up with us. She didn’t make it.” He spun his half-empty mug between his hands restlessly. “You? The final battle was in Denerim, wasn’t it?”

“I was long gone by then,” Sehun said. “When the news started to spread that the horde was travelling north, well…” He shrugged unhappily. “My father had already passed, and my mother refused to leave her employer, so I got on the boat alone.”

“How’d you end up taking vows, then?”

Sehun told him the story of getting introduced to Cullen through Lirene. Chanyeol knew them both - not a big surprise, honestly - and the conversation went on from there. It was comfortable, even nice. He could talk about his past without being called names or teased for being a barbarian, and Chanyeol understood his references and shared in his homesickness. Sehun hadn’t felt so at ease with someone in a long time.

Voices eventually interrupted them. Arguing voices, three of them - a man’s melodic tenor, a deep, gravelly bass, and a woman’s voice in lilting Dalish tones. Sehun frowned - he hadn’t heard the front door open - but Chanyeol was smiling and Monster looked alert, not defensive, so Sehun guessed these were friends.

“Hawke!” It was a woman’s voice, calling out over the arguing voices of the other three. “Come shut them up, will you?”

Flashing a charmingly crooked grin at Sehun, Chanyeol got up and went out to the main room. Sehun followed, and turned the corner just in time to see Hawke interrupt the argument by passionately kissing one of the participants.

The woman who had spoken, dark-haired and dark-skinned with massive gold earrings and a matching stud through her bottom lip, came up to Sehun. “Don’t mind them, they’ll be there for a minute.” She winked. “Hi, handsome, you can call me Isabela.”

Sehun got introductions to all of Hawke’s friends. The mages who were going to perform the ritual were Merrill, a tiny elven woman with Dalish tattoos, and Anders, a blond man who looked very tired, almost sickly, washed-out skin and deep circles under his eyes. Isabela said she was there just in case something went wrong and the demon manifested, since neither the people performing the ritual, nor the people the ritual was being performed upon, would be able to act very quickly. And Fenris, the elf that Hawke currently had backed into a corner, was there for the same.

They were a noisy, lively bunch, and they acted very at home in Hawke’s mansion. After handing his hand-copied the ritual over for the mages to study, Sehun stayed mostly quiet, sipping at his mead and observing their banter. Other than Isabela occasionally flirting at him, they seemed to pay him no mind. Eventually, Monster laid his head on Sehun’s thigh, and Sehun smiled down at him and found a good spot behind the ears to scratch.

Sehun felt his locket heating, slowly at first, and then more and more. His breath caught in his throat. Monster glanced up at him and whined, sensing the tension in his body. Exhaling, Sehun smiled at the dog reassuringly. He needed to relax - panicking would help no one.

When Monster’s ears perked up, his attention snapping towards the front door, Chanyeol stood. “Finally. Let’s greet them.” None of the others moved, so Sehun assumed Chanyeol was talking to the dog. He was proven right when Monster headed straight for the front door without even waiting for his master to follow.

Silently, Sehun got up as well. No one stopped him or made a comment, so he went to the foyer just as Chanyeol was opening the door.

Jongin _squeaked_ at the sight of the hound, taking a wide-eyed step backwards, and something in Sehun's chest squeezed, like his lungs were wrapped in chains.

It was the first time he'd laid eyes on Jongin since the vault. He looked so… _whole._ So vibrant. Sehun had been too absorbed in what was happening that night to really register how different Jongin looked now. His hair was cropped short into a pushed-back style that had been popularized by refugees in Kirkwall, making him look more angular, older. His roughspun, short-sleeved blue tunic and dark, tightly laced leather vest were very Fereldan, and his bared arms were several shades darker than they had been a few weeks ago. In fact, Sehun was pretty sure he'd never even _seen_ Jongin's arms before - mage robes were purposely full-coverage.

He was staring. He realized this when Tao got his attention with a small gesture, smirking at him knowingly.

“He won't bite you,” Chanyeol was saying. “Unless you deserve it, of course.”

Jongin looked a little bit terrified, so Sehun stepped forward, instinctively reaching out a hand to guide Jongin into the mansion. “You just need to introduce yourself,” he said. “Mabari understand human speech.”

Dark eyes snapped up at the sound of his voice. “Sehun?” Jongin asked, and the mix of apprehension and longing in his tone made that chain around Sehun's insides crank a few notches tighter.

Tao had said Jongin was in love with him. Sehun hasn't actually put any weight behind that slightly ridiculous claim until this very moment. But the way Jongin was looking at him mirrored the way Sehun felt, and his locket was burning against his chest, beating too fast, like a rabbit’s heart.

He saw Anders approaching before he could act, saw the blue light gathering in his hand, and tried to jump forward, to call out. He couldn’t move. The distinctive binding of a Force-school spell was already wrapped around his limbs, immobilizing him.

Anders touched the back of Jongin’s neck, and Jongin dropped, his eyes rolling back in his head as his knees gave out. Sehun was held back, so it was Tao who caught Jongin before he hit the ground, swinging him up into his arms with a grunt.

Chanyeol flicked his fingers, and the binding on Sehun released. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “We couldn’t risk warning the demon.” To Tao, he said, “Bring him inside.”

Tao laid Jongin out on the imported rug in front of the fire. He was completely still, his face peaceful, beautiful but unsettling. Sehun did not like how easily Anders had put Jongin to sleep, or how easily Chanyeol had held him back from interfering. He’d known the Champion and his friends were powerful - there was a reason the Templars hadn’t attempted to bind them to the Circle, after all - but that was a level of casual power he hadn’t expected.

Well, that was a good thing, right? It meant they almost certainly had the power to send Sehun and Tao into Jongin’s dreams.

“Merrill?” As the rest of the room gathered around, Chanyeol motioned to the Dalish mage. “Can you tell us what we’re dealing with, here?”

“Of course. One moment.” She knelt on the rug, one hand fishing in her belt-purse for something. Pulling out a sewing needle, she picked up Jongin’s limp hand.

Chanyeol’s hand on Sehun’s wrist stopped him from leaping forward to stop her before she pricked Jongin’s hand. A single drop of red blood welled up, and to Sehun’s horror, she swiped it up with her finger and _stuck her finger in her mouth,_ sucking the blood off.

“Oh. It’s a spirit,” she said, in that deceptively sweet, lilting voice. “A spirit of… of purpose, I think? It’s a bit difficult to tell.” Wiping the needle off on a handkerchief, she pressed the cloth over the tiny wound, putting pressure to stop the bleeding. “It tastes of desire, too.” Looking at Tao, she said, “You made the right decision, bringing him here. This spirit may have meant well originally, but contact with your friend is corrupting it.”

Sehun tried not to snarl at her. “ _Jongin_ is corrupting _the demon?_ ”

“Well… He’s mortal, isn’t he?” She said it like it was obvious. “Mortals are so much… _messier_ than spirits are.” Her eyes widened as she took in his expression. “Oh, I meant no offense! This is inevitable when a spirit is affected by mortals. It’s how all demons come to be.”

That basically flew in the face of everything Sehun had ever been taught, and he gaped, not even sure where to begin.

“A spirit of purpose,” Tao said thoughtfully. “I had guessed passion, not purpose, thought I suppose they’re similar enough when you get down to it. I wonder why it chose Jongin, then?”

“Let’s get this ritual over with, and then you can ask it yourself, hm?” Chanyeol plopped himself down cross-legged at Jongin’s feet, as Anders did the same near Jongin’s head. “The lyrium?”

Sehun pulled the lyrium dust out of his bag, and handed it over. He’d measured it out earlier, just to be certain there was enough there - the amount of lyrium he’d stolen was worth more than a year of his pay.

Chanyeol whistled. “I don’t think I’m going to ask how you got this,” he said, as he passed the lyrium satchels to Merrill and Anders. Isabela and Fenris were taking up stations on opposite sides of the room, out of the way but close enough to leap in and interrupt if necessary. “Alright, you two. Lay down next to him.”

What? Startled, Sehun looked up at him, and then at Tao. 

Tao cocked an eyebrow, suggestive. “We’re going into his dreams, remember?” He stretched out at Jongin’s side, pulling him close. Still asleep, Jongin rolled immediately over and snuggled right into Tao’s embrace, burrowing his face in Tao’s shoulder. Tao smirked at Sehun over Jongin’s head.

He _had_ to be doing that just to piss Sehun off. Putting aside his propriety, Sehun laid gingerly down on the rug, curving around Jongin’s back. Hesitantly, he reached around Jongin’s ribs and took Jongin’s hand, intertwining their fingers.

“You’re about to go into your friend’s dreams,” Chanyeol said, his deep voice rolling oddly over them, like he was already in a trance. “He will be there, but he may not be awake or sensible at first. The spell will allow you to wake him up without being thrown out of the Fade.” He shifted. “Be careful. Nothing in the Fade will be real except the demon, and the three of you. Everything else is a projection, a nightmare, or a memory.”

“Ready?” Anders asked, holding his hands out over Sehun’s and Tao’s heads. That same pale blue light was gathering in them, clashing oddly with the warm orange light of the fire.

Sehun looked to Tao, over Jongin’s shoulder. “Ready,” he said, and Tao nodded his agreement.

A cool hand dropped onto Sehun’s forehead, and he lost consciousness.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did [a portrait of my Hawke](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByPaf2DSsSrRbnByQjlQaXBtelU) a few years ago.
> 
> My Carver Hawke had [a modded face and auburn hair](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/141/images/2297-1-1300559102.png) to match his brother.
> 
> Hawke's companions are [Varric](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/4/49/Varric-DAIProfile.png/revision/latest), [Isabela](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/5/5a/IsabelaDAII.png/revision/latest), [Fenris](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/f/fa/Fenris_close.PNG/revision/latest), [Merrill](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/a/aa/Merrill_Portrait.png/revision/latest), and [Anders](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/8/85/Andersedited.png/revision/latest). Also, [Monster](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/0/09/Mabari_DA2.png/revision/latest).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ambient mixer for [the Fade](https://movies-other.ambient-mixer.com/the-fade).

Warm, plush lips trailed up Tao’s neck, kisses pressed hot to the line of his jaw. Tao shifted sinuously, rolling his hips against Jongin’s, shuddering as tiny sparks of lightning danced over his skin in the wake of Jongin’s hands.

Tilting Jongin’s head up, Tao leaned down and kissed him, deep and slow. Jongin made a soft sound into Tao’s mouth, pushing up hungrily to meet him halfway, his hands sliding down to cup Tao’s ass and squeeze.

Tao reached up and buried his hands in Jongin’s long brown hair, gently tugging on the strands. Jongin sighed and arched, beautiful, like an erotic painting -

And Tao remembered that Jongin did not have long hair anymore.

He hesitated, pulling back. Jongin looked up at him, big, soulful brown eyes under thick lashes, pouting reddened lips, perfectly clear, soft, tanned skin, shirt falling artfully off his shoulders, and Tao started to see everything else that was wrong with this scene. Jongin was just a little too lithe, his lips a little too full, his clothes too clean and his skin too clear.

“You almost had me,” Tao said.

Jongin’s smile twisted into his face, like whatever was wearing his body wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to look. “Sharp boy,” the demon said, and Tao was not surprised to realize he recognized the voice. It was Ardor. “You’re the one who came into _my_ domain.”

For the first time, Tao looked around himself. It was his one-room tenement, but too clean, and blurry around the edges. He couldn’t clearly see anything past a few strides around himself, and everything had an oddly green tinge.

This was the Fade, the world of dreams.

He looked back at Ardor, who had corrected its appearance in the time he was looking away, putting Jongin at eye-level, with pushed-back short hair and worn, handed-down clothes. He was no less gorgeous for it.

“Is this Jongin’s dream, or mine?” Tao asked.

Ardor smiled at him secretively, and disappeared.

“Ugh. Spirits.” Unsettled, Tao glared at the room around him, for lack of anything else to glare at.

A waking dream was a surreal experience. The Fade looked different when he was lucid than when he was actually dreaming, but there were some things that were the same, like the way his surroundings weren’t quite real unless he was looking directly at them, and how certain details were just a little… off.

His table was on the ceiling, for one thing.

“Sehun?” Tao called. There was no answer, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Ardor obviously knew they were here - it must have separated them.

Well. Tao would just have to go find him. He opened his door.

Walking out, he found himself in the Undercity. The stone walls around him were glittering with veins of raw blue lyrium, growing up from the ground in spikes and down from the ceiling like the roots of trees. Shadows walked the caverns - faceless, threatening figures that leered at Tao as he passed, leaving him feeling guarded and anxious.

This was Jongin’s dream, right? Was this how he viewed the Undercity? That was… kind of cute. It certainly explained why he stuck so close to Tao’s side when they walked through.

There were no stairs to the surface that Tao could see, so he could only keep walking until he found a way out. He tried to keep Jongin in his thoughts as he moved, hoping that maybe Jongin’s mind would subconsciously guide him.

He found no stairs, but eventually he did find a trapdoor, the kind that lead from the Undercity to the even less-used passages and sewers underneath the Undercity. It was the only exit he’d found, so he took it, yanking the door open and sliding down the ladder.

The ladder disappeared out from under him entirely, dropping him unceremoniously on the floor. He stood, and looked around. It was a long hallway, like a dormitory, and though Tao didn’t necessarily recognize it, he did recognize the sword-and-flames heraldry on the walls.

This must be the Templar barracks at the Gallows.

“This is progress,” Tao muttered, and started opening doors.

Most of the rooms were empty - some completely, some furnished but empty of life. In some, Tao heard voices, but saw no movement; in others he saw figures but heard no sound.

He opened another door, and finally found what he was looking for. A small, sparsely furnished single room, much clearer and more in-focus than the rest, and on the bed, two intertwined bodies.

Leaning against the doorframe for a moment, Tao just watched.

Sehun had gotten further into the dream than Tao had, far enough that the two of them were entirely naked, and they were _very_ pretty together. Sehun’s body was all long, lean muscle, golden-pale against Jongin’s deeper tan, and his grip was encompassing, possessive, fingers digging into giving flesh as he hiked Jongin’s thigh up higher over his hip. He was kissing Jongin like a man starved, his hips working rhythmically against Jongin’s, and Jongin - Ardor - clung to him desperately, one hand clutching broad shoulders and the other wrapped around Sehun’s ass.

Tao knew it was Ardor, because again, Jongin’s hair was longer than when Tao had met him, and there were apprentice’s robes in a pile on the floor. Tao wondered if this was a fantasy Sehun had dreamed up before, maybe many times.

Well, he was about to ruin it, either way. Tao walked into the room, climbed onto the bed, and got right up behind Ardor, snaking a hand around the fake-Jongin to wrap fingers around Sehun’s solid upper arm.

Dark amber eyes slit open. Sehun paused and studied Tao’s face, expression glassy and distant, unreactive. He was dreaming.

“Hi there, handsome,” Tao teased.

Jongin - Ardor - rolled his hips between them, a big, slow, sensual movement, pushing back into Tao’s lap even as his thigh pushed up between Sehun’s. Both of them groaned, perfectly in unison, and Sehun wrapped a strong hand around the back of Tao’s neck and yanked him in.

“Oh,” Tao breathed in surprise, and then Sehun’s lips were pressed to his, hotter and more insistent than Jongin’s. Tao’s mouth dropped open, and Sehun’s tongue pressed into his mouth, deep and dirty. Whining softly, Tao pressed back, tracing out Sehun’s teeth with his own tongue.

Ardor writhed happily between them. It felt fucking _incredible,_ but it also reminded Tao of where he was, what was happening. He reached up, fisted a hand in Sehun’s silky blond hair, and pried the man off his mouth, gasping for air.

“It’s a dream, Sehun,” he said breathlessly, before Ardor could do something to drag them both in again. Whew, what a kisser! “It isn’t real, and _this isn’t Jongin._ ”

Ardor laid flat on the bed between them, twisting to look over his shoulder and pout at Tao in annoyance. He was just… _very_ fucking attractive, and definitely a little younger, a little more innocent-looking than the Jongin that Tao knew.

“Is this your fantasy, Sehun?” Tao asked, purposely going for a taunting tone in the hopes of breaking Sehun out of the spell. “The pretty apprentice sneaks into your chambers after hours for a little rub-and-tug? That’s… surprisingly tame, actually. Wholesome, even.”

Strong fingers wrapped around Tao’s wrist and pried his hand away. “What is…” Sehun narrowed his eyes.

The glassy look was gone now. Tao grinned crookedly. “Rise and shine, darling.”

A slow, incredulous stare. “I hate you,” Sehun said, and Tao’s grin widened. Then, Sehun looked down, at the spirit between them.

Ardor trailed Jongin-shaped fingers up Sehun’s bare chest. It was back to the older form again, broader and stronger, and its eyes were solid green, in a face that seemed torn between wicked humor and breathless desire.

Sehun seemed to catch up, his memory of where they were and why they were here coming back to him in a rush, and he startled badly, scooting back on the bed to get away from the spirit wearing Jongin’s form. The movement revealed the entire front of his body, and Tao’s eyes might have widened a little.

That was… an impressive amount of cock. Was that accurate, or did Sehun imagine himself to be more well-endowed in his dreams? Tao had _heard_ the rumors about Fereldan men, but...

Tao dragged his eyes back up to Sehun’s face, forcing himself to focus. He could ponder _that_ question later.

“Nice to finally meet you, Sehun,” Ardor purred. It began glowing green, bright lines of power spiderwebbing over its skin. There was absolutely no question of its otherworldliness now.

Sehun was frozen, in horror or fear, so Tao got Ardor’s attention with a careful touch to its chest. “Where is Jongin, Ardor?”

Ardor cocked its head. “Nearby,” it said. “Will you come to find him?”

“If we need to,” Tao replied. “But we’re really here for you, and I think you know that.”

“Mm.” Ardor shifted sinuously on the bed, such a blatant sinful motion that Tao sincerely doubted Jongin had ever performed anything even remotely close to it in real life. “I could guess. But this is so much more fun.” It winked, and pursed Jongin’s lips, blowing an air kiss at them.

Then disappeared in a bright flash of green, leaving Tao on the bed with a very naked, very dazed-looking Sehun.

Tao raised an eyebrow at him.

Sehun, seeming to finally realize his situation, blushed bright red. He sat up, pulling a blanket over his lap, and cleared his throat. “I, um. I apologize for. That.” His eyes flicked down to Tao’s lips, which were probably swollen from the attention he’d been giving them only a moment ago.

Oh, this was too precious. “If I’d known that was how you felt about me…” Tao teased.

Scowling, Sehun shoved past him and got off the bed, wrapping the blanket around his waist as he went. “I was _dreaming,_ ” he said, tart.

“You didn’t even hesitate. Have you dreamed about me before?”

“No. Shut up.” 

“I wouldn’t blame you, if you have.” Lazily, Tao rolled off the bed and onto his feet. “I am awfully dreamy, after all.”

Sehun finished yanking his trousers on and turned, planting hands on his hips and glaring.

Tao nibbled on his lip and let his eyes wander, half because pissing Sehun off was hilarious and half because his naked torso absolutely warranted ogling. “Mm. You should go shirtless more often, Ser Knight.”

“Maker, I _hate_ you.” Sehun grabbed a tunic and tossed it on, then looked around. “...Shit. There’s no weapons here.”

“Yes, I noticed that. I suspect it’s intentional.” Tao did a little spin, displaying that he was also unarmed. “We’re in Jongin’s dreams, yeah? Ardor must be altering them. It knows exactly why we are here.”

Sehun frowned at that. “But - this can’t be Jongin’s dream,” he said. “Jongin’s never been in my room, how would he know what it looks like?”

Oh. Tao opened his mouth, then closed it again, considering that. “Well, neither have I,” he said, “and neither has Ardor, so it must have…”

“Gone into my head and pulled the memory out?” Sehun glared up at the ceiling, as if Ardor was watching. It probably was. “That’s very intrusive, and I’d really rather you not do that anymore.”

“Let me know if that works,” Tao muttered, though of course he knew it wouldn’t. Neither of them had any way to defend their minds from the spirit, and they both knew it. Not here, not in Ardor’s own domain.

Sehun squared his shoulders resolutely. “Well. We just have to go find some weapons, then. I’d really rather not confront a demon unarmed unless I have to.” 

He opened the door.

The halls of the Gallows were alive now, much more in focus, and the figures walking the halls were both clear enough to distinguish and loud enough to understand. Not knowing his way around and not wanting to get separated, Tao stuck close to Sehun’s side as they left the Templar’s barracks and moved out into the shared hallways.

Sehun may not have realized it, but he was clearly used to mages getting out of his way, because he didn’t move to the side when a pair of senior enchanters came down the hallway. This resulted in said enchanters walking _right through Sehun’s body_ and Sehun jumped so badly, Tao instinctively threw his hands up to ward off an attack.

“I don’t think they can see us,” Tao said, when Sehun had calmed down again. “Are the Gallows really this busy?”

Sehun was not paying attention to him, looking wide-eyed at the enchanters who had passed. “That woman died years ago,” he said. “She tried to escape and was killed in the ensuing fight.” He spun in place. “And that man there, that’s Ser Emeric, he was killed by blood mages three years ago.”

“So this is a memory?” Tao asked. “Is it yours, or his?”

“Maybe both, I don’t know.” Sehun met his eyes. “Or maybe it’s just a dream, and Jongin’s mind is just choosing figures at random.” They were just about the same height, and standing very close together, and the shifting green light of the Fade reflected in the amber of Sehun’s eyes, strange but beautiful. It left Tao breathless.

This was becoming a real problem. Was this Ardor’s doing, or was Tao just finally noticing Sehun because they weren’t actively in a fight for a change? Maybe he was picking up on Jongin’s attraction. They were, after all, in Jongin’s dreams.

Sehun cleared his throat and looked away. “It’s kind of… sobering, to see it like this,” he said quietly. “I knew _all_ of these people.” He started walking again, and Tao fell into step beside him. “Wilmod was in the training class before mine, he was killed before he could take his vows. Decimus turned to blood magic and necromancy and had to be killed.” He was indicating the Templars and mages they were passing. “Karl was made Tranquil, they say his lover killed him because he couldn’t stand to see him that way. Ella disappeared without a trace. Ser Alrik was murdered. Ser Conrad was arrested and imprisoned for lyrium smuggling.”

Tao was staring at him, aghast.

“Ser Varnell was leading a fanatic cult, he had to be put down.” Sehun’s expression was getting more incredulous by the moment, as if the sheer scope of all of this was just beginning to sink in. “Elsa was made Tranquil. Maddox was made Tranquil. Evelina became an abomination. Huon turned to blood magic. Ser Roderick went insane from lyrium overuse.” He turned, walking backwards, watching the shades as they passed by. “Maker’s _breath._ ” 

“This is insane,” Tao said. “Even I know that the Circles aren’t supposed to be like this.”

Sehun bit his lip. “I could keep going, too. There’s more.” He turned back around. “Is this how Jongin sees the Gallows? A _graveyard?_ ”

“You just named every one of these people and exactly what destroyed them,” Tao pointed out. “Why don’t _you_ see it as a graveyard?”

“I’ve never actually… tallied all of it up, before.” Sehun shook his head. “Magic is dangerous. Being a Templar is dangerous too, but we accept that risk when we enlist.”

Tao looked at him. “Mages don’t get that opportunity,” he pointed out. “They don’t enlist, they’re just _born._ ”

“I know, that’s why the Circle exists, to protect -”

“From this?” Tao waved his hand at their surroundings. “Seems to me that the very institution meant to protect is the one that kills.”

Sehun shook his head. “You just don’t understand how much worse it could be,” he said, but even he didn’t sound completely convinced.

“I don’t? Sehun, my people have mages, we have lots of mages. We _don’t_ have Templars or the Circle. And we have done just fine, for centuries. So have the Dalish, and the Chasind, and the Avaar, and everyone else not under the Chantry’s thumb.” He spread his hands expressively. “Mages are at their most dangerous when they are desperate. This is not protection, it’s an arms race.”

Sehun opened his mouth, closed it again, and fell silent.

Tao let him think. They were almost to the other side of the Gallows, now, anyway. A sign on the wall said _Apprentices’ Dormitory._

Sehun went straight for a certain door, which Tao assumed must be Jongin’s room, and opened it. Jongin was indeed there, considerably younger, wide eyes behind silky chocolate-colored hair and robes that were just a little too big for his smaller form. With him was an elven man several years his senior, Dalish tattoos across his brow and down his cheeks, holding glowing hands over Jongin’s face.

“Thanks, Yixing,” Jongin was saying, very softly. He sounded… upset? Ashamed?

“You don’t have to put up with this,” the elf, Yixing, told him. “You know Cullen would help you if you told him what is going on.”

Confused, Tao looked at Sehun, but from the expression on his face Sehun was just as confused. “This must be years ago,” he said to Tao. “If it really happened at all. Look how young Jongin is, he can’t be much older than twenty-two.”

Jongin was shaking his head. “I can’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone,” he begged, fisting his hands in Yixing’s robe.

The elf’s expression was pained. “I don’t want to keep having to heal you, da’len,” he said.

“Da’len,” Sehun murmured. “I had no idea they were that close.”

“What does that mean?” Tao asked, as Jongin apologized to Yixing again.

“Little one, technically,” Sehun said. “It’s just a term for someone younger than you, but it’s pretty familiar. And Yixing doesn’t use a lot of elven speech anymore. Most people don’t like it, so he stopped.” He took a step closer. “What is he healing?”

But the scene was changing around them, becoming a different room, similar in layout but with different furniture, a window in a different place. Jongin was still on the bed, but the man with him was human, not elven, a mage with similar coloring to Jongin, but clearly a few years older. He had a bloody lip, and he was literally _sobbing_ into Jongin’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin was saying. “I’m so sorry, I wish I could help.” He had tears in his eyes.

The older mage shook his head. “No,” he said, watery. “Stay out of their way, Jongin, whatever you do. Don’t make yourself a target. I don’t want this to happen to you, too.”

“That’s Alain. What in Andraste’s name is going on?” Sehun asked the room at large. He looked around, as if the walls would answer him. They did not - they started to fade away entirely.

Tao reached out and grabbed Sehun’s wrist, yanking him back before the wall forming between them solidified enough to separate them. “Nope, I’m not losing track of you,” he grunted.

“Are these Jongin’s nightmares?” Sehun demanded, as if Tao had any better idea than he did. “Is this what Jongin dreams about, or is this Ardor?”

“Why would Ardor show us this?” Tao asked. The room was becoming solid again. It was larger than Jongin’s room, much better-furnished.

Sehun made an annoyed face. “I don’t know, to mess with my mind?” He moved back as another spectre moved through him. This one was someone Tao actually recognized - First Enchanter Orsino, a tired-looking, grey-haired elven man who looked to be perhaps fifty years old.

Jongin came in through the door, looking even younger than before somehow. Even Tao could see the differences now - Jongin was smaller in all dimensions, his eyes seeming too wide for his face. Was he even yet twenty here?

“First Enchanter, can I talk to you about - ” Jongin stopped, trailed off. “Are… are you okay, messere?”

Orsino sat down behind his desk, his movements slow and pained. “I’m fine, apprentice,” he said, his expression shuttered. Tao thought he saw the man’s face change - a black eye, a split lip, tears tracking down his cheeks - but then it was gone, replaced only with a kind smile. “What did you want to talk about?”

He gestured at the chair opposite his desk, but Jongin remained standing. Or was he sitting? No, he was pacing - 

“Shit,” Sehun breathed, as half a dozen versions of Jongin and Orsino flickered into semi-existence around them - all different ages, wearing different clothes. Startled, and a little disturbed, Tao instinctively pressed his back against the wall.

“I was wondering when -” the youngest Jongin said, as another said “I wanted to know if you think I’m ready,” and still another version, this one pacing by the bookshelves, said, “It’s time for me to take my Harrowing, First Enchanter.”

“No,” all of the Orsinos said at once. “You’re too young,” one said, even as others began with “Now isn’t the best time,” or “You still have too much to learn.”

“Alain took his Harrowing when he was nineteen,” said one Jongin, and “You’ve been saying that for years!” accused another.

Tao frowned. “How long was he kept from taking the test?” he asked.

Sehun glanced at him. “Years longer than anyone else,” he murmured. “Orsino thought that - ”

“You’re too empathetic, Jongin,” the First Enchanter said, not unkindly. “You’re too easily swayed by the opinions of others. You have to work on being strong in yourself. Right now, if you took the Harrowing, you would be corrupted.” He shook his head. “I won’t send you into a test I am sure you will fail.”

All of the Jongins and all of the Orsinos disappeared, except for one. “Orsino,” Jongin said, now older, much closer to the age at which Tao had met him. “Are you sure that you’re alright?”

Blood was pooling on the ground under Orsino’s desk, as if he was bleeding out under his robes.

“I’m fine, Jongin,” Orsino said, smiling gently. “Please don’t worry about me.”

A knock on the door. Jongin whipped around, wide-eyed, and suddenly the room was Jongin’s dorm room again, and Orsino was gone. All other sounds were gone, even the ambient noises from the window and the muffled sounds of footsteps in the halls.

Another knock, pounding roughly enough to make the door shake. “Open up for inspection, apprentice,” a sneering voice said from the other side.

Sehun’s eyes went wide.

Jongin opened the door. On the other side was a large Templar, dirty-blond with messy mutton-chops that Tao actually remembered. This was the Templar that had been harrassing elves in the Alienage looking for Jongin, one of the ones who had come after him at Lirene’s on that first day.

“There’s no inspection planned for today,” Jongin said softly as the Templar closed the door behind him. He was backing into the corner and oh, Tao did not like where this was going, not at all.

Sehun obviously didn’t either, as he snarled and tried to get between the Templar and Jongin. It was no use, of course; they couldn’t see him.

The templar leered. “Such a smart boy,” he laughed. “That’s why I like you, Jongin. You know the score around here, you always have.” His voice made Tao want to go take a bath. “You’re too smart to fight this, aren’t you? Come here.”

Slowly, Jongin came forward, and by the look on his face, Tao knew, just _knew,_ that this was not the first time this had happened. Feeling sick, he reached for Sehun’s wrist, and pulled him back, even as he tried to leap forward.

“I’ll kill him,” Sehun snarled, his normally impassive face twisted into something between revulsion and fury.

“We shouldn’t be watching this,” Tao told him, urgent. “Sehun, we need to get out of here, this is not something we have any right to see.”

“I will murder him in _cold blood._ ”

Tao shared the sentiment, but, “It isn’t _real,_ Sehun, it’s a nightmare, and it’s _not our nightmare to witness._ ” He pulled hard, locking his hand around Sehun’s wrist and yanking him towards the door, just as Jongin sank to his knees.

The moment he opened the door, it disappeared entirely. They found themselves on a busy, noisy, crowded street, surrounded by bright colors and glimmering, cheap jewelry, by dirt and rot and shades of dark skin.

Tao stopped dead in shock, and Sehun nearly smacked into his shoulder. “What the fuck?” Sehun asked, looking around at the scene. “Why did you take me away from - where the fuck is this?” He turned in place, looking back over his shoulder at where the door no longer was. “Why did you - ”

“Sehun,” Tao said quietly, “there was nothing you could have done, and nothing to be gained by watching. The least we can do is leave Jongin some dignity.”

Heaving a breath, Sehun dragged both his hands through his hair. “Please let that have been only a nightmare,” he muttered. “Please don’t let that be a memory, I couldn’t bear it.”

“ _You_ couldn’t to bear it?” Tao snapped. “Leave it, Sehun, and don’t you ask Jongin about it either. He’s away from that place now, and that’s what matters.”

Sehun studied him for a second, trying to read his expression. After a moment, he looked away, and thankfully let the subject drop. “Is this Starkhaven?” he asked. “Is this one of Jongin’s childhood memories?”

Tao swallowed hard. “No,” he said, “it’s mine.” Sehun looked at him in confusion, and Tao shifted in place uncomfortably. He was going to have some _words_ with Ardor. “This is Ayesleigh, where I grew up.”

A blink. “So you _are_ Rivaini,” Sehun said. Then, he looked closer, and his voice softened. “Tao?”

“I don’t like that Ardor has brought us here,” Tao blurted out. “I know which nightmare this is.”

Eyebrows raising, Sehun asked, “Nightmare?”

“Unfortunately. Stick close, the city is dangerous.” Tao grabbed Sehun’s hand and pulled him towards the marketplace.

Sehun tried to pull his hand free, but this was Tao’s dream now and Tao did not let him go. It wasn’t likely that Sehun was in any real danger, not like he would be if they were really in Ayesleigh, but Tao really did not want to risk getting separated right now.

He knew that meant Sehun was probably about to witness his worst memories, but there was no way around that. The only way out of the nightmare was through it.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Tao refused to let go of Sehun’s hand, and after Sehun had nearly gotten run over by running children or old ladies pulling hand-carts half a dozen times, he stopped trying to get loose. There was clearly a learned skill to navigating the crowded streets, so he let Tao lead.

The moment they’d appeared in these streets, Tao had changed. He hadn’t commented on it, so Sehun thought maybe he hadn’t even realized, but he was wearing bright colors now - loose and slightly ragged pants in blue and tan, a red vest open over a bare chest, and a massive amount of gaudy golden jewelry, including a large jeweled ring pierced through one nostril. His hair was shorter, just brushing around his ears and eyebrows, and Sehun was pretty sure he was younger, too. He looked like a completely different person.

The sun beat down, hotter than Sehun had ever felt, and the air smelled like fish. Tao dragged him through the busy market and then into a run-down, crowded neighborhood. Sehun could see glimpses of the sea in between the buildings.

Tao pulled him down a pier, to a small house that was actually out on the breaker wall, almost in the bay itself. The house was cluttered, messy, and devoid of life, and Tao finally stopped, right in the middle of it.

“Well?” he asked the room at large. “Here I am, let’s get this over with.”

His hand was trembling. Frowning, Sehun opened his mouth to ask again if he was alright, but Tao pulled out of his grasp and started to pace the room. 

They waited.

Sehun was just getting ready to suggest that they try going somewhere else, when a sudden chorus of screaming rent the air. Wide-eyed, he spun around, but Tao didn’t move from where he was.

There was definitely a fight going on outside, and from the sound of it, it was a very one-sided fight. Sehun knew what a slaughter sounded like. “Tao?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we…”

Tao shook his head, looking miserable. “That’s not how this nightmare goes,” he whispered.

The fighting was closer to the door now, and Sehun could hear a very distinctive female voice just outside, cursing vehemently at the intruders. A flash that he recognized as fire magic, more swearing, and then a strangled scream that abruptly went silent.

Tao’s eyes fluttered shut, his expression crumpling in pain.

The door burst open. Tao screamed, high-pitched and terrified, and Sehun instinctively jumped in front of him, but the armed men who stomped into the house literally went right through him, as if he wasn’t there. They grabbed Tao roughly and dragged him out of the house, kicking and screaming.

Horrified, and feeling more helpless than he’d felt in a long time, Sehun followed them outside. The attackers dragged Tao directly over the limp body of a woman who had Tao’s nose and an awful bloody wound on her head, and Sehun was going to be sick.

 _This_ was Tao’s nightmare? Maker, how _awful._

When he realized Tao was being taken to a ship, he reassessed just how bad it was. This couldn’t be just a nightmare - it was too detailed, too logically progressing. Too horrifying.

Sehun’s suspicion was confirmed when they got onto the ship and the slavers - because that’s clearly what they were - forced Tao to his knees and ripped all of his jewelry off. Tao’s nostril tore as the ring was pulled out, in exactly the right way to make it scar just as it had in real life, and Sehun knew that this had to be a memory.

This had really happened to Tao.

But it wasn’t real now, and Sehun tried to stay close to Tao, tried to reassure him even if he couldn’t have any other effect. “It’s just a dream,” he said, knowing that was not going to help much as Tao was forcibly stripped of his clothes and dressed in what amounted to rags, as he was chained in a long line of others with bleeding piercings and open wounds. “It will be over soon. I’m here.”

Tao raised his eyes to meet Sehun’s, but he didn’t respond. His gaze was unfocused, glassy. Despairing. Could he even hear Sehun?

Unable to do anything else, Sehun just stayed close by Tao’s side as he was crammed into the hold of the ship with dozens of others.

The surroundings blurred then, movement all around them by figures he couldn’t make out, whips and blood, screams and crying and cruel laughter. Sehun didn’t know if that was because dreams just tended to skip around, or if Tao’s memories of this part were just too hazy to replay clearly. What he could make out was plenty bad enough; it was probably a blessing that it wasn’t clearer.

Then, something changed.

Sounds of fighting broke through the haze. Tao lifted his head, his piercing now healed but new bruises on his bared arms, his body too thin and his hair completely gone, shaved off. How long had he been held captive?

The cargo hold hatch was lifted, and a scarred man with swarthy skin and a gold hoop earring glinting against long black hair peered in. “Let’s get all of you out of there, shall we?” he said, in a heavy Antivan accent.

The relief that poured through Sehun was so complete, he just knew it wasn’t his own. He followed as Tao was lead with the other slaves up onto the deck, and as Tao’s wrists were unchained, Sehun looked out over the water and saw the Gallows in the distance, the high spire of the Chantry at the very top of the cliff. They were just outside Kirkwall.

The scene faded away, the deck under their feet replaced with stone tile. Tao dropped to his hands and knees, dressed in black once more, long, loose hair hanging in front of his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Sehun knelt beside him. “That was awful,” he said, very softly.

Tao barked an ugly laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I used to have that one every night.” He sat back on his haunches and looked up. “Was that supposed to prove something, Ardor?” he called out, bitter. “Did you want Jongin to see what a coward I really am, hiding in my house while my mother was murdered?”

The walls had no answer for him. Tao closed his eyes, tears leaking from the corners, and Sehun, not knowing what else to do, put a tentative hand on Tao’s shoulder, rubbing a little. Tao glanced up at him, clearly trying and failing to control his expression, and then dropped his gaze again, taking deep breaths.

Eventually, Sehun became aware that there was dampness soaking into his knees, that the scent of the air had changed and there were voices. He froze in place, unwilling to look up.

Tao’s hands clenched against his knees. “It’s changed again,” he said, looking around.

“Yeah,” Sehun murmured. “I guess it’s my turn.” He pulled away and stood, and Tao stood at his side, wiping his tears on his sleeve.

“Sounds like a great time,” he said dryly, looking around. He shivered. “Shit, it’s cold. This is Ferelden?”

Without even thinking about it, Sehun took off his heavy overtunic and handed it to Tao. He hadn’t been wearing that overtunic a second ago. He would bet that his hair was shorter, too, and ran his hands through it just to check. Yep.

Tao was staring at him. “You look so young,” he said, as he pulled the heavy wool over his shoulders. “How… how far back are we? Is this the - ”

“I left Ferelden before the Blight reached Denerim,” Sehun said, possibly a little too sharply. “My nightmare isn’t the Blight.” After seeing Tao’s nightmare, he had no doubt what his own was going to be, and he was trying to brace himself.

A warm hand pressed against his back. “Breathe,” Tao said, as the shouts of children playing street games pinged familiarly against his consciousness. “We’ll get through it.” He looked around. “How does it begin?”

Oh, Maker. “When I go home,” Sehun whispered. He looked down at the parcel in his hands. “It always starts like this.” Sehun took a deep breath. “Alright, come on.”

They walked through the market square of Denerim. It wasn’t nearly so crowded as Ayesleigh, not as run-down as Lowtown, but it did smell like wet dogs. That was one Ferelden stereotype that was true, at least in the cities.

Tugging the tunic closer, Tao hurried to keep pace at Sehun’s side. “How can you Southerners stand this weather?” he complained. “Kirkwall gets cold enough, thank you.”

As far as Sehun was concerned, Kirkwall never got any colder than ‘dewy spring morning,’ so he just snorted softly. It would be almost nice to walk the streets of Denerim again like this, to show someone the city he loved as a child, if it wasn’t for what Sehun knew was coming.

He found the right stand in the market, and told Tao, “Wait here.” Darting up to the stall, he dropped the parcel on the counter, just as he had seven years ago.

“You got it?” the shopkeeper asked him, and Sehun nodded. “Great work, cousin. The Friends thank you for your service.” He winked, dropped a bag on the counter, and shuffled the parcel under the counter. “Make sure your pa sees some of that coin, now.”

Sehun forced himself to smile as he took the coin and returned to Tao. In real life, he’d stayed, talking with his much older cousin and munching on a roll from the next stand over, but Sehun had no urge to draw this out.

Tao tapped his arm. “You used to work for the Friends of Red Jenny?” he asked, curiously.

Blinking, Sehun cocked his head. “Yeah? Lots of kids would pick up work that way in Denerim. You know of them?”

“Yeah, I know of them,” Tao said, with a little smile. “I didn’t know it was an international thing though, I thought it was just Kirkwall.”

“The Friends started in Denerim,” Sehun said, as they started walking. “I think it just spread. Lots of cities have a Red Jenny. My cousin knew who the Jenny of Denerim was at that time, but he wouldn’t tell me who it was.” He looked over his shoulder. The stand was hazy now, fading out into the strange green light of the Fade. “I kinda always thought that was because he actually was Denerim’s Jenny.” He shrugged bitterly. “I’ll never know. He died in the Blight.”

Tao was silent. What could he say? The mood soured again, Sehun lead the way back home, his little coinpurse heavy in his hand.

When they reached the gates, Tao paused, and Sehun braced himself. “What is this?” Tao asked.

Sehun didn’t answer. The heavy, spiked wooden gates were standing open, and there were no guards. Wrong, wrong, it was so _wrong._

“Sehun, this is the alienage, isn’t it?” Tao was looking at him, questioning him, his expression confused and his tone urgent. “You said you were going home.”

Again, Sehun didn’t answer. _Couldn’t_ answer - he was afraid if he opened his mouth, he would be sick. Tao would figure it out in a minute, anyway.

They passed through the gates.

“...Oh, Creators,” Tao whispered.

The streets ran red. Bodies were literally strewn across the ground, cut down as they ran, all of them defenseless.

Because it was fucking _illegal_ for an elf to carry a weapon.

Sehun forced his feet to move, forced himself to walk the path he’d walked seven years ago, the path to the alienage’s main square. They passed by the body of the teenage girl who used to giggle with her friends whenever Sehun passed by, the girl’s best friend sobbing over her corpse, and Sehun had to close his eyes to keep from breaking down, making his way through the carnage from memory.

Then, at the foot of the vhenadhal tree, Sehun found what he was looking for. He dropped to his knees in the mud and took the man’s cold hand between his own. Glassy amber eyes stared unseeingly at the sky, in a face left untouched by the awful gash across his stomach that had spilled everything there was to spill out onto the dirty cobblestones.

Tao was right beside him, the entire time, and as Sehun broke down, Tao gathered him into his arms and held him. Burying his face in Tao’s shoulder, Sehun cried like he had that day - but that day, he’d been completely alone.

It was a long time before Sehun calmed down, his broken sobbing finally quieting to heaving breaths. It wasn’t real, he told himself. It had happened years ago.

“Who was he?” Tao asked, very softly.

Sehun squeezed the cold fingers one last time and let go. “My father,” he said.

Tao’s eyes widened. “So you’re - ” He snapped his mouth shut.

Too emotionally exhausted to even be ashamed, Sehun met Tao’s eyes. “You can say it.”

Wincing apologetically, Tao said, “You’re elf-blooded?”

He was uncomfortable because “elf-blood” and “half-blood” were considered slurs, shameful things to be. There _was_ no word for what Sehun was that wasn’t considered a slur.

Sehun nodded.

“Does… does Jongin know?”

He was too tired to be having this conversation. “No one in Kirkwall knows,” Sehun said as he stood. “No one but you now, I guess.” Humanity always completely overwhelmed the elven bloodline; Sehun was as tall as a human, as round-eared, as small-eyed. Only his tendency towards lankiness over bulk and a slightly-too-high nose bridge gave any indication of his heritage. No one had questioned his humanity in Kirkwall, not even once.

To his credit, Tao didn’t press the issue. “What happened here?” he asked.

Sehun turned a slow circle, taking in the carnage. The fuzzy, dreamlike quality around the edges of the vision made it a little more bearable, reminded him that it was a dream. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t find out why this had happened for months, not until I was already in Kirkwall.” He took a deep breath. “It was politics, shitty fucking human politics. Some asshole noble was trying to distract the populace from the fact that he’d just usurped the leadership of the city, so he fabricated a nonexistant ‘elven uprising’ and then gleefully put it down.”

“Shit,” Tao said, with great feeling.

Stopping at the next body, Sehun stared at the familiar heraldry on the bloodied shield. “This is the only human casualty in the entire alienage,” he said bitterly. “A Templar. She died trying to protect my father from her own people, while I was on the other side of the city, delivering fucking packages.” Tears were threatening again; Sehun looked away and dragged his hands down his face. “What are you trying to do, Ardor?” Sehun yelled. “What is the point of all this? Are you just getting off on showing us the lowest points of our lives?!”

“I’m sorry.”

Sehun and Tao both turned at the sound of the voice. It was Jongin, or something that looked like Jongin anyway, dressed in a Fereldan peasant’s street clothes and with his hair short and ruffled. Sehun stiffened defensively, hating that Jongin was seeing him like this, and then realized it probably wasn’t Jongin at all.

Tao obviously was thinking the same thing, because he stepped forward, as if he was putting himself between Sehun and the possible threat. It was such a complete reversal of every interaction he’d had with Tao up until now, that Sehun almost started to laugh. He must really seem pathetic right now if Tao was feeling protective of _him._

“Stop fucking with us, Ardor,” Tao said. “You’re only tiring yourself out. How long can you keep these illusions up?”

Jongin kept coming forward. “It’s me,” he said softly. “It really is. I’m sorry, I thought it was a normal dream. It took me a long time to wake up.”

Tao hesitated, clearly not sure whether to believe him, so Sehun approached. Jongin smiled at him, so fucking beautiful, serene and kind of sad. It wasn’t a smile Ardor had ever been able to recreate, not that Sehun had seen.

“How much did you see?” Sehun asked. He reached; Jongin took his hand, his fingers finding the spaces between Sehun’s like they’d been made for each other. His touch soothed Sehun’s frayed nerves like he was touching Sehun’s mind directly. Maybe he was.

“All of it,” Jongin confessed. He looked apologetic about it. “We’re inside my head, aren’t we? I could see all of it. But then Ardor got distracted and I regained enough control to wake up.” He reached his other hand out towards Tao and looked around. “The Fade does look a lot different when you’re not dreaming, doesn’t it? You can see the places that don’t fit together.”

Tao took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “Can you? It just looks a mess to me.” He waved his other hand at the blurry, green-tinged edges of the scene. “It’s obviously not _real,_ but I can’t see the seams.”

“Oh?” Jongin looked around, looking thoughtful. “Well, maybe that’s because I’m a mage. Or maybe because it’s _my_ head.” He tugged on their hands. “Come on, let’s leave this place.”

He went for a nearby door, pulling Sehun and Tao behind him. The door, Sehun knew, should lead into the Alienage’s general store, but it opened into the foyer of Hawke’s mansion instead. Startled, Sehun looked behind him, but the door was gone; there was only a decorative end table and an old painting.

Jongin held a finger to his lips and jerked his chin at the main room, visible through the doorway. Sehun leaned to look, with Tao crowding behind him.

The main room was upside down. The three of them were laid out on the ceiling in front of the fireplace, tangled up in a bundle, unmoving. Anders sat cross-legged at their head, seemingly meditating, while Chanyeol paced the rug and Merrill sat against the wall, petting Monster. Chanyeol was having a conversation with the other two, Isabela and Fenris, indistinct low voices.

On the ceiling, which was the floor, sat two indistinct humanoid forms, seemingly made of gas and light more than solid flesh. One was bright green, and the other was pale blue, glowing so bright it was nearly white. They were speaking, Sehun could hear them, but he couldn’t quite pick out the words.

Jongin tugged them through the front door and out into Hightown.

“What was that?” Sehun asked, as soon as the door was closed. “Those shapes, what were they?”

“They looked like spirits to me,” Tao guessed. “Was one of them Ardor?”

Nodding, Jongin said, “The green one. I told you Ardor got distracted.”

“There’s another demon in here with us?” Sehun asked incredulously.

“A spirit, yeah. Well, not _in_ here, I don’t think. Nearby.” Jongin looked up. “I’ll never get over that,” he said, pointing.

Sehun followed his gaze, up into the sky, and his breath caught. “Is that…”

“The Black City,” Jongin confirmed. “The seat of the Maker.” The sky was not blue or grey or sunset-amber as it should be, it was greenish-yellow, hazy and thick-looking. Far off in the distance, Sehun could see floating islands in the sky, and the largest was black, with distant, pointed spires.

It was… humbling, in a way that Sehun found hard to put into words. Once, the Maker had sat upon that throne, lived within that city. He was _looking_ at it.

Jongin took his hand. “I know,” he said, even though Sehun hadn’t said anything. They stood there for a moment, looking up at the sky.

Tao cleared his throat. “We, um. Should probably actually be going in there and talking to Ardor, shouldn’t we?”

Sehun glanced over at him. “I’d prefer to have a weapon before that,” he said. “I know spells and things still work in the Fade, but I’d feel a lot better with a sword in my hand. Let’s take advantage of its distraction.” He eyed the Hightown mansions around them. “Think we could make one of these doors lead to the armory in the Gallows?”

Jongin smiled. “Only one way to find out, right?”

He pulled them to the nearest door, and opened it.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin was trying to think really hard about the Gallows, but just as he was opening the door, a stray flash of light caught on Sehun’s golden hair, and his concentration faltered. They ended up in the Undercity somehow.

“Ah, shit,” Sehun said immediately, clutching his head. “What in Andraste’s name is all this lyrium doing here?”

Curious, Jongin blinked at him. “Lyrium is everywhere in the Fade,” he said. “Is the song that loud?” Jongin could hear it, but only very faintly, a high-pitched hum at the back of his mind. He only knew what it was because he’d had to take lyrium for his Harrowing, a mild dose compared to what the Templars took. Tao was looking at them both curiously - he’d probably never had to take lyrium.

“Yeah, it’s loud,” Sehun said, through gritted teeth. He looked around, but of course, the door they had come through was gone. “Let’s get above ground.”

“Hang on,” Tao said. “There’s a - ” He pointed at a corner, where a bright red scrap of fabric was peeking out from behind some rubble. 

The bag was stuck, so Jongin waved his hand, shifting the rubble with a simple spell. He pulled the bag out and opened it. There were two letters inside, one sealed in dark red wax and one in bright orange. 

Sehun sucked in a breath, his eyes wide. “Don’t - ” he said, but Jongin had already broken the seal on the red letter.

An ornate locket made of smooth, shiny green viridium fell out of the letter and into his hands, the chain pooling cold against his fingers. Jongin frowned at it, wondering why it looked so familiar.

Tao was looking over his shoulder. “It’s addressed to you,” he said to Sehun. “Something about your mother?”

Sehun wasn’t looking at them. “I know what it says,” he said, through gritted teeth.

Something told Jongin that he shouldn’t be reading this, but he couldn’t stop himself, as if the letter was glued to his fingers, as if a vise held his head from turning away. “My friend, I am sorry to be the bearer of awful news,” he read aloud. “After the battle, some long days were spent finding survivors and identifying the dead. I regret to inform you that your mother, along with her employer and their entire household, was among the latter.” Sehun’s eyes fluttered closed. “The horde burned most of what they touched, but I did find this, which is how I was able to identify the body. I recognized it - it belonged to your father, did it not? She was wearing it when she died.”

Wordlessly, Tao took the locket from Jongin’s hand and passed it to Sehun, who took it with hesitating fingers. As he settled the chain around his neck, Jongin continued.

“I hear you have enlisted in the Templars. It’s not what I would have expected, but I am glad that you have found a new home and a place for yourself. There is little left of Denerim now, but we will rebuild.” Around them, the scene shifted subtly, and Jongin saw unfamiliar streets, destroyed buildings, massive funeral pyres. It was all gone when he looked up. “...I know we will meet again,” he continued shakily, “but that day may be many years away. Take care of yourself, my friend.” He blinked at the signature. “It’s signed, ‘Kyungsoo.’ Why does that name sound familiar?”

Sehun grunted and took the letter from him. “Just an old friend,” he muttered.

Tao wasn’t buying it. “Kyungsoo _Tabris?_ ” he asked. “Warden-Commander Kyungsoo Tabris, the _Hero of Ferelden?_ The man who stopped the Blight almost single-handedly?”

Sighing, Sehun glared. “Yes. Him. All of that happened after he left the alienage, I never knew him that way. It doesn’t matter, can we get a move on?”

“You were _childhood friends_ with the Hero of Ferelden?!”

“Tao,” Jongin admonished softly. Sehun’s face was red, his brows pulled angrily in towards the center of his forehead. “What’s in the other letter?” he said, to try and distract.

Huffing, Tao popped the seal open and unfolded the second letter. He paused, and frowned. “It’s blank.” He flipped the parchment over, but he was right - both sides were completely blank, the only identifying mark being the bright orange wax that had been used to seal it closed. “That’s strange.”

Sehun plucked the parchment from his hands. “I’ve seen this seal before somewhere,” he murmured. “Maybe that’s why it’s here? Just something I saw in passing, probably.” He tucked both letters back into the bag and dropped it on the cobblestones. “Weapons. We need to find weapons before Ardor starts paying attention again.” He started forward.

“Wait, Sehun - let’s try this way.” Tao pointed down another path. “I came through this part earlier. Maybe the trapdoor is still there.”

They followed Tao through the twisting passages and wider caves of the Undercity to a secluded corner with a wooden trapdoor just like all the others that lead to the sewers. He opened it with a flourish and gestured.

Jongin went first. His feet touched the ground, and the world shifted around him, and Tao muttered _not again_ as everything settled. Sehun and Tao kept moving, but Jongin did not, because he recognized the aged white plaster of the walls around them.

Sehun frowned. “This isn’t the Gallows,” he observed. “I don’t know this place.”

“Jongin?” Tao asked quietly. He wrapped a hand around Jongin’s elbow, steadying him, as Sehun turned, eyes widening as he took in Jongin’s expression.

“Oh,” Sehun realized, looking around again at the surroundings. “Is this…”

Jongin nodded. “Corin’s Lookout, in Starkhaven.” He took a deep breath, his hands flexing at his sides. “I guess it must be my turn now.”

“No.” Sehun stepped closer, his hand coming up to rest on the small of Jongin’s back, glaring undirected at their surroundings. “No, he’s had enough, don’t you _dare_ \- ”

An explosion rocked the floor under their feet. Screams of terror and pain lit the air immediately after, and Jongin felt the hands touching him fading away. He was eighteen again, and alone in his dorm room, the last time he would ever see it.

Jongin ran.

He ran like he had that night, like his world was crashing down on him. The Lookout was a very tall building and the older apprentices’ dorms were up quite high; Jongin made it down two flights of stairs before he started to smell burning. By three floors down, his face was burrowed into the collar of his robes to try to ward away the smoke, coughing into his collarbone as he ran.

Someone called his name. Jongin turned, and saw Alain, barely twenty-one, herding some of the youngest apprentices through the halls, three terrified children, none older than nine. He held the door open for them, shooing them through, motioning for them to stay low, and turned to Alain. “What’s happening?!” he called over the din.

Alain shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it came from the lower levels.” They exchanged a look, both of them knowing what was on the lowest levels of the Lookout - the Templars’ quarters and the Senior Enchanters.

The kids were absolutely petrified, but even so young they were conditioned to obey, and so Alain and Jongin had little trouble keeping them together as they hurried down the stairs. They only managed two more floors before they reached the fire itself, roaring like a monster, licking through the doorway like something alive.

Alain threw up a barrier spell, something Jongin had never been very good at. All of his best spells were useless in this situation. “We need to try the other side!” Alain called, and Jongin forced his feet to move. If he froze up, the kids would too.

The stairs on the other side were even worse, flames already nearly up to the door. Jongin slammed it shut. “We’re trapped!”

“Keep your mouths covered, that’s right. We’re going to be okay,” Alain was saying, pulling off his cowl and handing it to a little boy who didn’t have anything to hold over his face. He looked up at Jongin, and the sheer horror in his eyes, the absolute certainty that they were about to die, would haunt Jongin’s dreams for the rest of his life.

The door slammed open, and Jongin yelled, instinctively throwing his arms up to cover his face. The air that blasted into the room was cool, not hot, and Jongin peeked out, shocked.

First Enchanter Adela stood in the doorway, her staff raised high overhead. The shield around her held the fire at bay, a sphere of nothing that the flames could not consume.

“Come on!” she called.

The kids practically leapt forward. Jongin had to be dragged by the wrist; he was too shocked to move. The First Enchanter was covered in awful burns, her robes seared away in places to reveal blackened skin, seemingly still upright by sheer force of will alone.

“We have to move fast,” she said, her normally melodic alto voice raspy and strained. “I can’t hold this forever.” So they went, as fast as three adults and three children could move when crammed under a shield barely large enough to cover them all, down three more flights of stairs and to the main hall.

It was impossible to see how extensive the damage was through the flames, and that alone told Jongin just how very bad it was. The only things they could see was what was revealed as their little sphere of protection passed through, and when they started tripping over the charred corpses on the ground, Alain told all the kids to close their eyes, and took the hands of two of them. Jongin took the last one, the little girl. He didn’t even know her name.

He could barely bring himself to look at the First Enchanter. Her wounds were horrific, beyond anything that Jongin had seen healed, anything that he could imagine anyone surviving. He also couldn’t look down, at the bodies in robes and the bodies in armor, dozens of them, probably hundreds of them.

Somehow, they reached the main foyer before Adela’s legs gave out from under her. She collapsed to a knee, crying out, and the shield flickered for a moment before re-stabilizing, letting in a terrifying blast of hot air.

“First Enchanter!” Alain cried, moving to help her back up.

She stopped him with a weak gesture. “Take my staff,” she said, through gritted teeth. “Take it and run.”

Jongin couldn’t breathe. Alain shook his head. “No, we won’t leave you here to die - ”

“I am already gone,” Adela snapped. “Take it and save these children. I will hold the spell as long as I can.” She reached into the half-charred leather pouch of the body at her feet, and Jongin realized with sickening clarity that the blackened armor belonged to the Knight-Commander, and was half on-top of an equally blackened robe, a no-longer-identifiable mage that he had tried to save.

Adela pulled out a lyrium vial and flicked it open. “Go, run!” She thrust her staff into Alain’s hands and tipped the lyrium down her throat.

Alain ran. Without any other choice, Jongin ran at his side, dragging the kids along with him. The shield went with them, leaving the First Enchanter silently behind, holding that protection spell over them through her staff all the way until they were outside, even as she was engulfed in flames and destroyed.

Coughing and gasping, they got as far from the Lookout as they could. There were a few other survivors by the gates of the courtyard, all of them mages - Grace and Decimus, Terrie and Lenore, Elsa and Darric and Reid, and a few more.

Not a single Templar had survived, and Jongin was one of less than a dozen mages who remained. Of those, Terrie and Lenore would later escape, but Decimus would be killed in the attempt, and Elsa and Reid would be made Tranquil as an example and a threat.

Jongin’s safety, his home of his entire childhood, was gone.

As Corin’s Lookout collapsed in on itself, so too did Jongin, sobbing in Alain’s arms.

Eventually, the fire, and the Lookout, and Starkhaven itself faded away, and Jongin became aware again of the cracks in the Fade, and of hands on his back. Sehun pulled Jongin into his embrace, and Tao took his hand, and Jongin cried between them, mourning all over again for everything he’d lost.

He was just beginning to calm himself down again when he realized that while the surroundings had faded and the other survivors were gone, Alain was still there, kneeling at Jongin’s side. When Jongin looked closer, he saw the cracks there, too, and the green light that showed through.

“Are you happy now?” Jongin asked, choked with tears. “Have you finished torturing us?”

Sehun and Tao both stiffened, and looked where he was looking. Now more glow than man, only holding the barest semblance of Alain’s shape, Ardor reached out and cupped Jongin’s jaw in one hand.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” it said, gentle. Jongin wondered if it even could understand that it had. “These were all your own memories, your own nightmares. These are the weapons with which you hurt yourself. Grief. Shame. Guilt.”

“You aren’t going to hurt Jongin or anyone else, ever again,” Sehun growled. He stood, looming over them all, and Jongin realized he was carrying a shield and a sword. Specifically, the shield and sword that had belonged to the Knight-Commander of Starkhaven. “You will leave him, _now,_ or I will kill you myself.”

Ardor cocked its head, not getting to its feet. “You are too late, Ser Knight,” it said. Its voice was quiet, but sure. “I have stayed within this soul for too long. I couldn’t leave, even if I wanted to.” It spread Alain’s hands placatingly. “Jongin and I are bound, now. We are one. If I die, so too will he.”

Jongin ceased to breathe.

Sehun stopped in his tracks, his face draining of color. “No,” he said. “You lie. That can’t be - that can _not_ be true.”

An inhumanly warm hand found its way into Jongin’s. “I wish it was not,” Ardor confessed, looking now at Jongin instead of at Sehun, “for it means now that the only bit of the Fade I will ever again see will be Jongin’s dreams. If I had known this would happen, I would not have joined with you in the first place.” It shook its head once, sad. “I am sorry.”

“If you stay,” Tao said urgently, “you will be corrupted. Isn’t that how this works? No matter how pure-hearted Jongin is, in the end his mortality will corrupt you.”

Ardor’s glance shifted to him. “It’s very sweet of you to pretend that you care about _my_ well-being,” it said, and Tao’s lips flattened. “You may be right. I will fight it, and Jongin will too, but… yes, it’s possible.”

Sehun dropped again to his knees, and took Ardor by the shoulders. “Not ‘possible,’ _inevitable._ You’ve signed his death warrant,” he said. His voice was breaking, and along with it Jongin’s heart. “And your own.”

“If you believe it is inevitable,” Ardor said softly, “then perhaps it would be a mercy to kill me now in any case. I am not _completely_ certain that my death will drain Jongin’s life, Sehun, only mostly so. Will you take that risk?”

His eyes widening, Sehun turned to Jongin. “Is that - can you tell?”

Could he? Closing his eyes, Jongin did something he’d never attempted before. He went _looking_ for his connection to Ardor, feeling around inside himself.

And there it was. Like a pair of candles that sat close together in the sun for too long, the edges between Jongin’s mind and Ardor were blurring. Jongin tried to tug free, but he barely knew how to begin.

“I can’t… I can’t tell.” Jongin opened his eyes again, and met Sehun’s. “We are definitely connected but I can’t tell what would happen if the connection was broken.”

“Jongin.” Sehun took both his hands. “What do _you_ want me to do?”

He was asking if he should kill Ardor. Swallowing hard, Jongin looked between them, from Sehun to Ardor and back again, and then looked to Tao, trying to find some hint, something that would show him what to do.

They were all looking at him. Waiting on his decision.

“I don’t want to die,” Jongin said. “I don’t want… I don’t want Ardor to die.” He met Ardor’s imaginary eyes, and realized it was true. Somewhere in all of this, he’d grown attached. “But I don’t want us to turn each other into monsters, either.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

Ardor’s smile was sad, and somehow fond. “This is why I decided to stay with you in the first place,” it said.

Jongin frowned. “I still don’t remember,” he said.

Pressing a hand to Jongin’s forehead, Ardor said, “Yes, you do.”

And then, as if it had been unlocked, the memory came back. Jongin remembered walking the twisted halls and floating islands of the Fade by himself. He remembered meeting Ardor, taking the form of his old First Enchanter at first, and then later in its own form, a vaguely humanoid body made of green light. He remembered talking - just talking - with Ardor, for hours on end, talking about his past, showing it his fears, crying on the spirit’s insubstantial shoulder.

_I’ll never be anything, _Jongin had said, and his throat closed up now remembering it, because he knew it was a thought he’d had a hundred times before. _I was passed from my parents to the Circle, from teacher to teacher, from keeper to keeper. When the Starkhaven mages tried to escape from the Gallows, they didn’t even tell me, they didn’t try to take me with them._ __

___I am a burden on others, I always have been and always will be. A waste of space._ _ _

___You don’t have to be,_ Ardor had told him. _You have a purpose waiting for you, I can sense it. You just need to go find it.__ _

___I’m not strong enough._ _ _

___Then let me help you._ _ _

__Jongin opened his eyes, and found there were tears in them. “So I did ask you to come with me,” he whispered. “I _begged_ you to guide me. Maker, I’m such an idiot, I did this to myself.”_ _

__“You were frightened,” Ardor said, as if that made it better. “I wanted to help you. I sensed a purpose waiting for you then, and I still do.” He looked up at Sehun. “Have you made your decision? Will you risk Jongin’s life in exchange for his freedom?”_ _

__Sehun exhaled, dropping his eyes. “Shut up. You know I won’t.” He looked to Jongin. “I couldn’t bring myself to kill you when I was _ordered_ to do it, even knowing you were not likely to come out of the Harrowing whole. And I can’t do it now, even knowing that if I let Ardor remain, it will likely destroy you.” His gaze hardened. “But if it turns bad…”_ _

__“We’ll stop you,” Tao finished. “We’ll watch you, Jongin, I promise. We won’t let you hurt anyone, if it comes to that.”_ _

__Jongin was crying again. “Thank you,” he said, knowing he should be relieved by that, but mostly feeling empty. He looked to Ardor. “From both of us.” Ardor nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry, you went through all of this trouble for nothing.”_ _

__“Not for nothing,” Tao said, pressing against his side. “For you.”_ _

__“We’d do anything for you,” Sehun muttered, knocking his forehead gently against Jongin’s temple and letting it rest there._ _

__Taking both their hands, Jongin exhaled, long and shuddery, blinking away his tears. “I don’t understand why,” he said, “but I am grateful.” He looked at Ardor, who was watching them with something like fondness on its insubstantial features. “How do we… get out of here?”_ _

__A small smile. “It’s your dream, Jongin,” Ardor said. “Just wake up.”_ _

____

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Jongin opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Sehun doing the same, warm firelight reflecting against his sleepy expression and making amber eyes seem to flicker like flames themselves. His heart stuttered at the sight, at Sehun’s nearness and the uncharacteristically open vulnerability of his expression.

Behind him, familiar hands wound around Jongin’s waist, and hair tickled the back of his neck as Tao pressed his forehead between Jongin’s shoulderblades and groaned. “Are we awake now?” he asked.

“Welcome back, boys,” someone said, and Jongin rolled back a little so he could look over his head. Was that Chanyeol Hawke? “Did you do it? Is the spirit gone?”

Silence.

Ardor?

 _I’m here,_ Ardor murmured. _Just worn out._

So was Jongin. “No,” he said softly. “It’s too late. We are one, now.”

The entire room seemed to deflate, and Jongin ducked his head, ashamed. He’d caused so much trouble for so many people this time, and for nothing.

“Unfortunate,” another voice said, “but not entirely unexpected.” Jongin looked up over his head, and found an exhausted-looking blond man watching him. “If that is the case, I would like to speak with you. Privately.”

Both Sehun and Tao stiffened defensively. Jongin was close enough to feel them. “Why privately?” Sehun asked, rolling up to sitting so he could look the man in the eye.

“No, I think that’s a good idea,” Hawke said, putting a hand on Sehun’s shoulder. “I’ll go with them, if that’s alright?” He looked over at the blond man, who nodded, and then looked back. “Okay?” That last was addressed to Sehun, who hesitated, then nodded, clearly unhappy with it. 

Jongin sat up, and Tao, groaning, did the same, shaking out his mussed hair and rubbing his eyes. Looking around, Jongin attempted to get his bearings - he’d been knocked out before he’d made it inside the house, and though he now understood why that had been necessary, it was leaving him somewhat disoriented.

Wide, leaf-green eyes met his. The elf from the Alienage, the one who had helped him escape from Karras weeks ago, smiled and gave him a little wave. “Hello again,” she said. “I’m sorry it didn’t work, are you feeling alright?”

Literally everything about tonight was surreal. “Hello again. I’m tired,” Jongin said truthfully. “Exhausted. But I’m alright.”

She nodded sympathetically. “And the spirit? How is it doing?”

The other elf in the room made a disgusted noise, but no one else commented. For his part, Jongin was surprised she would ask, and in the back of his mind, he felt Ardor agreeing. “It’s also exhausted,” Jongin said truthfully. And then, with hesitation, he added, “...Thank you for asking.”

“Of course,” she said, and got to her feet. “I’ve spoken with a fair few spirits in my time. They can be inscrutable, but they are not without feelings.” Her eyes were compassionate, her expression disconcertingly sad. “You definitely should speak with Anders and Hawke, though, I think you’ll find it very helpful.”

“Now?” Jongin asked, slowly getting to his feet as well.

The blond man nodded, and stood, with Hawke giving him a hand up. “Follow me,” he said.

With a nervous glance at Sehun and Tao, Jongin followed them into the next room over, a library. Hawke motioned for them both to sit, and closed the door, leaning against it to watch.

They sat.

“My name is Anders,” the blond man said. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, they were glowing pale blue. Swirls and cracks of blue-white glowed all over his skin and even through his heavy robes. Jongin gasped and jumped.

 _“And I am Justice,”_ Anders said, in a voice that could not have been more inhuman. _“If you two intend to share that body indefinitely, there are some things you should know.”_

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

As Jongin followed Anders and Hawke into the library, Isabela hopped down off of her perch on the desk. “Well!” she said. “Someone had better show you boys to the guest rooms, and that someone might as well be me.” She tossed them both a wink and started up the stairs.

“Are we… staying?” Tao asked.

“I don’t know, are you? You look exhausted, and it’s been hours. It’s already past midnight.” Surprised by this, Tao glanced out the nearest window. Sure enough, the streets were dark. “You don’t _have_ to stay, of course, but I’m sure you know how dangerous it is to travel the city this late, and it isn’t as if Hawke doesn’t have the space.” 

Exchanging glances, Tao and Sehun followed her up the stairs.

She led them down the hall, and gestured at a few of the rooms. “Guest wing. Pick any room you like. Hawke’s room is down the hall, but I wouldn’t go that way unless you want a show. Fenris is staying over tonight.” She winked.

“I don’t have permission to be away from the Gallows tonight,” Sehun murmured, ignoring her innuendo. “I really… I shouldn’t stay.”

“You’re going to walk all the way across the city and down to the docks, and get on a ferry to the Gallows, in the middle of the night? You’re not even fully armed,” Tao pointed out. “Do the ferries even run this late?”

Sehun frowned. “They do, but -”

“And here I just thought you boys might want to comfort your cute mage,” Isabela said, with a small smile. “He looked like he could use it.” Tao glanced at Sehun again, and found him glancing back, gauging each other’s reactions to that. “Well, it’s your choice, in any case. The rooms are available if you want them. Washroom is at the end of the hall. Do what you like.” She flashed a smile and turned to go back down the stairs.

Tao opened his mouth to ask Sehun what he was going to do, but then Isabela stopped at the top of the stairs. “Oh shit, I almost forgot!” She reached into her belt purse and pulled out a small cloth bag. “Zitao, these are for you.”

Surprised, Tao turned, and caught the bag as she tossed it to him. “What…”

“They’re not my color,” Isabela said, as if that made any kind of sense. “I never wear them. Take them, and… I don’t know. Don’t forget where you come from.” She flashed an ironic salute and disappeared down the stairs.

“What in the world…” Sehun looked at him. “Zitao? That’s your name?”

“Yeah.” Tao upended the bag into his palm. Brightly polished silver jewelry fell out into his hand - a pair of earrings and a body stud, all in very traditional Rivaini style. His breath caught.

Watching his face, Sehun took a step forward. “That’s very generous of her,” he said carefully. “You haven’t, uh… You don’t usually wear that stuff anymore, do you?”

Tao shook his head, and tried to keep his hands from doing the same. It hit him suddenly that Sehun actually _knew_ what this meant to Tao, in a way that maybe no one else ever would, and he met Sehun’s eyes, feeling weirdly vulnerable and open. “No,” he admitted. “When my… my jewelry was taken from me, something else was as well.”

Sehun nodded. “Maybe it’s time to take it back?” He opened the nearest door, looked inside, and then nodded and gestured. “There’s a mirror in there.”

So Tao found himself standing in front of the mirror, wincing a little as he carefully re-opened his never-completely-healed piercings. The earrings were round, flat disks the size of a coin with symbols of the Rivaini gods of night and the moon etched into them, and the nose stud matched, a smaller ball of silver covered in runes. The weight of them was familiar, but it had been so long, Tao had to shake his head a little, feeling strange.

“They’re nice,” Sehun said awkwardly.

Tao was _not_ going to cry. “Yeah,” he said. “Isabela’s got good taste.”

Sehun’s expression was very carefully non-committal. “Tao?”

“Sorry.” Tao scrubbed his eyes, willing the wetness away. “It’s just. I got here four years ago, right as the thing with the Qunari was starting to explode, and, you know, a lot of Rivaini still follow the Qun even though it’s been decades since our liberation. I couldn’t allow myself anything from my homeland, I was afraid if anyone knew - ”

“I get it,” Sehun told him, taking another step closer. He looked like he wanted to touch Tao, maybe hug him, but he wasn’t sure if that was allowed, now that they were back in the real world. “Believe me, Tao, of all people, I _get_ it.”

Tao wasn’t sure if that was allowed either, so he didn’t step closer. “Sorry,” he said again, turning away. “I hope you weren’t planning on -” he sniffed “- continuing to think of me as a mysterious figure in the shadows, because I’m pretty sure all my mystery has been shattered by this point.”

A tentative hand slid over his shoulder and squeezed gently. “The mysterious figure in the shadows thing was getting kind of old, anyway,” Sehun said. “The allure gets stale pretty fast.”

“The _allure?_ ” Tao lifted his head and tried on a smirk. It only felt a little strained. “So you found it _alluring,_ did you?”

Huffing, Sehun let him go. “Maker. Shut up.” His words snapped, but there was a little flush starting on his cheeks, a very small smile creeping just around the edges of his mouth.

“I never shut up,” Tao informed him. “You may as well get used to it.” His hand went to his nose self-consciously. “Hey, you’re kind of an asshole, you’ll tell the truth. Be honest, how do they look?”

“ _I’m_ kind of an asshole?” Sehun said, incredulous. Tao smiled at him winningly, turning his head so that the earrings caught the moonlight filtering in through the window. Sehun pursed his lips but complied, seeming to really consider the question. “They look… Foreign. But they’re pretty.” He met Tao’s eyes. “Silver is good on you.”

Tao’s smile might have softened. Just a bit.

“But they’re flashy, you know? Aren’t they going to ruin that whole, ‘fades into the shadows every time something threatens you’ thing you do?”

“Mm, good point. I’ll have to get a hood.” An idea occurred to him, and he grinned. “Or I can just duck behind you, then no one will be looking at me.”

He expected Sehun to have a snappy retort, but to his surprise, Sehun grew quiet, studying his face. “You know,” he said, “I was planning to take Jongin back to the Circle tonight.”

Shocked, Tao took a step back.

“ _After_ the demon was gone. But it’s not gone, it’s still there, and as long as it is…” Sehun looked down. “As long as it’s there, the Circle is not safe for Jongin. Maybe it never was.”

The words clearly pained Sehun to say, but Tao could not have been more relieved to hear him say them. He sighed, the sudden tension dropping from his shoulders.

“But that means I can’t protect him,” Sehun continued. “I can’t be there to watch him and help him and hold him back from the edge. I took an oath, I have a duty I cannot abandon. So… I guess that means it falls to you.”

Tao rubbed a hand over his forehead. “When are you going to learn that Jongin is not a child who must be sheltered?” he said.

Sehun shook his head. “Not from the general dangers of the world, I know. He can take care of himself, I’m not worried about that.” Tao raised an eyebrow, and Sehun ducked his gaze sheepishly. “Alright, I’m only a _little_ worried about that. But mostly I’m worried about Ardor.”

Ah. Right. “I can’t even argue with that,” Tao murmured.

“You got a message to me before, so I know you can do it again,” Sehun said. “If you need me, either of you, just let me know. My sword is yours.”

Cocking his head, Tao searched Sehun’s face. “...You’re serious, aren’t you,” he said. “You mean that.”

“I do. It’s not much, it’s not… _enough._ But it’s what I can offer. And I’ll do what I can, from my end, to see that the others never find Jongin.” Tao’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and Sehun flushed, rubbing self-consciously at the back of his neck. “He really should just leave the city,” Sehun muttered. “They don’t have a way to find him anymore, he could go anywhere. Disappear.”

Feeling the events of the night creeping up on him, Tao went over to the bed. “It’s not easy to just pick up and leave,” he said, “as well you know. Jongin’s only just beginning to feel comfortable with Kirkwall. And besides, he wouldn’t want to leave you behind.” He flopped onto the bed carelessly, then paused, blinked, and bounced a little. “Well! This is _nice._ ”

Sehun dug his hand into his hair, pulling it out from its horsetail and letting it fall around his face. “I suppose we should stay, huh?” he thought out loud. “Jongin looked like he was ready to fall over, and I guess… it’s not very safe for me to go back out tonight.”

Kicking his boots and socks off, Tao raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re allowed to say you want to stay because you miss Jongin,” he pointed out. “He misses you.”

Silently, Sehun met his eyes.

Tao held back a smile and waved a dismissive hand. “Right, that’s what I thought,” he said, satisfied. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not sleeping in my armor.” He started unbuckling his molded leather jerkin.

The Rivaini were, as a rule, less concerned with the propriety of nudity than most other cultures, and so Tao didn’t really think too much about stripping off his armor, or his shirt for that matter. It didn’t even occur to him that not everyone was so comfortable with it until he realized Sehun had turned his back, hesitantly following suit, and that the tips of his ears were flushed red.

The urge to tease him was too strong to resist. Tao sauntered over in trousers and not much else, standing squarely in Sehun’s personal space as he examined the armor that Sehun was divesting himself of. It was nice kit, if plainer and less heavy than Sehun’s formal Templar armor; silverite chain mail and hardened leather instead of full silverite plate.

Sehun got the armor off, and his boots, but hesitated at the shirt.

Tao bit his lip, and raised an eyebrow.

Glaring, Sehun stripped the shirt off and set it with the rest of his things. “Stop that,” he grumbled.

“But it’s so much fun,” Tao said, not bothering to drag his eyes away. Sehun looked every bit as good in real life as he had in the Fade, if maybe a bit sweatier. Tao was a little surprised to see the viridium locket sitting against his sternum, but only a little. It obviously meant a lot to him.

Looking closer, Tao realized that Sehun’s veins were standing out too prominently in places where the skin was thin - the inside of his arms, his lower abdomen, his neck. They were just a little too blue. Tao was just about to ask if that was normal for a Templar, when the door opened.

Jongin paused in the doorway, blinking at them owlishly, obviously not expecting to find them not only not at each other’s throats, but _half naked_ and not at each other’s throats.

Awkwardly, Sehun cleared his throat, and shifted his weight.

“So we _are_ staying tonight?” Jongin finally asked, tearing his gaze away from Sehun’s bared torso to meet Tao’s eyes.

“Unless you desperately want to get out of here,” Tao confirmed.

Jongin shut the door behind him. “No, staying is good. I’m pretty sure I could pass out on a rock right now, but that bed looks much better.” He took a few steps into the room, but stopped before he got within arm’s reach. “Sehun, are you… staying?”

Sehun met his eyes. “Do you want me to?” he asked.

“Yes.” The answer was immediate, without any hesitation whatsoever, and Tao could see how far that went to soothing Sehun’s nerves. Sehun smiled, pleased and a little bit charmingly shy, and, oh, wow, alright then. Tao’s heart shimmied a bit.

Jongin started pulling off his own clothes. Swallowing, Sehun turned his back again, pretending to be busy with his armor or something, and while his back was turned, Jongin met Tao’s eyes with a clear question in them. He looked to the bed, then to Sehun, then back again to Tao, and made an expression that asked _is this okay?_

Tao let his eyes drift over to Sehun’s ass - he was bending over to tuck his boots under a nearby table - and then wiggled his eyebrows at Jongin. That was answer enough, apparently, because Jongin smiled in relief.

Jongin moved to undress, and Tao got himself out of the way, flopping on the bed on his stomach and propping his chin on his hands. Neither Sehun nor Jongin could manage to hold the other’s gaze for very long, but both were shooting longing looks at each other when the other one wasn’t looking. It was endlessly entertaining to watch.

Sehun managed to start the conversation with a soft question about how Jongin had been since leaving, and as the awkward tension between them started to thaw, Tao began to see the connection there. The inside jokes, the physical comfort level, the years of shared experiences. He smiled to himself, pleased.

Then, Jongin climbed up onto the bed. Tao rolled automatically, making space for him, but Sehun froze in place, wide-eyed and unsure. “Maybe I should…” He looked at the door, at the bed, at Tao. “I’ll find another room.”

“Or you could stay here and keep talking,” Tao suggested, before Sehun could bolt. None of them wanted Sehun to leave, and he seemed to be the only one who wasn’t aware of that.

“The bed is big enough,” Jongin said, and, well, that was a _slight_ exaggeration, but they could make it work. “Please, Sehun? I’ve missed you.”

Sehun’s resolve broke so visibly, Tao could almost visualize a brick wall crumbling to the ground. “Alright,” he said, and approached the bed.

Tao ended up pushed back against the wall, with Jongin spooned up in front of him, warm and solid. He laid his arm out flat under Jongin’s neck, his other arm wrapping around Jongin’s waist, and watched with sleepy, half-closed eyes as Sehun tried to figure out what to do with himself.

In the end, Jongin settled the issue by tugging Sehun down and pulling him close, so close that his long legs tangled up with Jongin’s and nudged against Tao’s. Jongin sighed, buried his face in Sehun’s shoulder, and asked a muffled question about how things had been at the Gallows since he left.

Slowly, as Sehun talked, he relaxed, and curved closer, close enough that the ends of his silky hair fell across Tao’s hand. Tao pulled the blanket up over them and drifted off, listening to their conversation with his forehead pressed to the back of Jongin’s neck and his fingers tangled in Sehun’s hair.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Habit woke Sehun before the sun had risen, when the light coming in through the window was only just beginning to brighten. Jongin had rolled onto his back in the night, and Sehun had somehow ended up cuddled up against Jongin’s shoulder, and drooled on his chest, embarrassingly enough.

Untangling his limbs, Sehun allowed himself the momentary indulgence of brushing the lightest of kisses across Jongin’s temple. He pulled back, and saw that Tao’s black eyes were open, watching him sleepily from where his face was half-buried in his folded arms.

Sehun flushed, but he didn’t try to make excuses. He just held a finger to his lips for silence, and slid out of the bed to get dressed. His armor was far too noisy to put on while Jongin was still slumbering, but he pulled on his clothes and boots. Then, he saluted to Tao, who quirked a sleepy smile at him, and let himself out of the room.

With the door softly closed behind him, Sehun quickly used the washroom, pulled on his armor, and headed down the stairs. No one else was up yet, except for the voices of servants in the kitchen; Sehun crept by without disturbing them to retrieve his sword and shield from the foyer. He promised Monster that he’d send along a treat when he wrote Chanyeol a thank-you note, and let himself out, heading back to the Gallows.

The trip back was quiet, and the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when Sehun got off the ferry and crossed the courtyard. If he was lucky, he could get up to his room before anyone noticed him, and then he wouldn’t have to answer questions about where he had been the night before.

He was nearly there when a hand hooked inside his elbow and pulled him up short. Sehun startled and whipped around, his heart in his throat. It was Baekhyun, wide-eyed and harried, tawny hair sticking up in all directions and deep bruises under his eyes.

“Where have you _been?_ ” Baekhyun hissed, and yanked Sehun into his room, closing the door behind him.

“I had to take care of something,” Sehun said. “What’s going on? You look terrible, what happened?”

Baekhyun sat heavily on Sehun’s bed and dropped his face into his hands. “Last night was a wreck,” he moaned. “Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. I _told_ them it wasn’t a good plan, but no one listens to the recruit.”

“Slow down,” Sehun said, starting to get alarmed. “What are you even talking about?”

Dragging his palms down his face, Baekhyun met Sehun’s eyes. “Knight-Lieutenant Thrask is dead.”

Sehun’s stomach dropped out. “Thrask?” he whispered. Baekhyun’s expression said it all. “Maker, _no. Shit._ ” Thrask was one of the most honorable people Sehun had ever met, the kind of knight he’d hoped to be someday.

“Yep,” Baekhyun said, his expression twisting bitterly. “He’s dead. And Grace is dead. And Hugh, and Ruvena, and about half a dozen others, oh, _Maker,_ what have we _done?_ ”

His head spinning, Sehun grabbed Baekhyun’s shoulders. “Baekhyun, breathe,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”

Nodding, Baekhyun braced his elbows on his knees, and took a deep breath. “You know that some of the mages are…” He glanced up at Sehun, hesitating on his words. “Organizing. _Organized._ Have been, for a while.”

“When you say _organized…_ ”

“It’s a resistance, Sehun. Against _us._ Or… well. Against Meredith.” Shocked, Sehun slowly sat on the bed next to him. Baekhyun turned his head just enough to look at Sehun from the corner of his eye. “Thrask found out about it… And he joined them.”

That was _not_ what Sehun was expecting to hear. “When was this?”

“Earlier this year. With an officer on their side, the mage resistance started recruiting more Templars. They were very careful about it, they only approached knights who they were completely certain were sympathetic.” He met Sehun’s eyes. “Like me.”

“Baekhyun…” Sehun couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is crazy.”

“You’re not blind,” Baekhyun snapped. “If you haven’t seen what’s been happening to the Gallows over the last few years, then it’s because you haven’t _wanted_ to see it.” He took a shuddering breath. “Orsino, you know, he still really believes in the Circle. They weren’t sure he could be trusted with this, so they didn’t tell him. But he started noticing mages gathering in groups, mages keeping secrets, and he got worried.”

Sehun’s eyes went wide. “He told Meredith.”

“No, thankfully. He doesn’t trust her anymore. No, he went to the Champion. And that’s when things went sideways.” He shook his head, digging his hands into his tawny hair in frustration. “I told them, you _can’t_ fuck with Hawke, not unless you have a death wish. I told them to just let me go talk to him, but they didn’t listen.”

Sehun rubbed Baekhyun’s back, trying to calm him. Forcing his hands to unclench, Baekhyun continued.

“Orsino thought, if he told Meredith, she’d assume blood magic and kill everyone without bothering to question first. He thought Hawke would be a more sympathetic figure, you know, since he’s a mage himself. But Grace, she _hates_ Hawke. She told the rest of them, you can’t trust Hawke, he’s a mage killer, he hunts his own kind.” Baekhyun looked up, and his eyes were red. “It didn’t help that he just killed Huon and Evelina at Meredith’s behest. The others bought it, they believed he was coming to kill them, so they fought. Stupid.” He shook his head. “All Hawke saw was spells and blades coming for him. He defended himself. It was a fucking massacre.”

Covering his mouth with one hand, Sehun made a strangled noise. “This was yesterday?”

“No, it was a few days ago. The officers were keeping the disappearances hushed up until they could figure out what was going on.” Baekhyun shook his head again. “Thrask, at least, was not stupid enough to just march up and wave swords in Hawke’s face. But he had the bright idea to go procure some… _insurance,_ so that Hawke wouldn’t attack him on sight.”

Suddenly, and with horrible clarity, the pieces clicked into place. _Next time, come visit me without having to be kidnapped first, hmm?_ “The Champion’s brother,” Sehun realized. “Carver Hawke. Andraste, even _I_ know that’s a terrible plan.”

Baekhyun’s laugh was dry and unhappy. “I warned them. I tried, I really did, but they refused to listen, and I - I _couldn’t_ go against Hawke.” He got up off the bed and started to pace. “Hawke saved my life once. He did more than that, he saved my _honor,_ he saved my _soul,_ I owe him everything.” He saw Sehun’s confused expression, and said, “It’s a long story. My point is that I couldn’t be a part of anything that would hurt Hawke, so I… I warned him. I found him, and I warned him, and I begged him not to hurt them.”

“Did Hawke kill Thrask?” Sehun asked urgently.

Miserable, Baekhyun pushed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “Hawke told me to stay out of the crossfire, so I came back here. No one knows I was involved, but when I got back I found out Meredith had been tipped off, and sent Cullen out to intervene. When he came back, he only had Yixing and Alain with him. He said Thrask and Grace were dead.” He dropped his hands into his lap. “And now Yixing and Alain have been dragged up to the officers’ quarters, and I’ve been waiting to hear what will happen to them _all night._ ”

Wait, _what?_ “They’ve been in judgement all night?” Sehun asked. Baekhyun nodded, miserable. “Shit, Baek, we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

“You think I didn’t _try?_ ” Baekhyun snapped. “They have Knight-Lieutenants Agatha and Mettin blocking the officer’s wing. The only way to get past is to subdue them. At this point, I don’t even care that that would get me expelled, but there’s no way I could win against them, not when they’re both on a double lyrium dose and I’m not taking any at all.”

Sehun stood. “Maybe we can convince them to at least tell us what’s going on. Come on.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It was a quieter morning even than their usual, with both Jongin and Tao still sleepy and slow to get moving. They walked back to Lowtown hand-in-hand, silent, until they were almost back to Tao’s place.

“Hey,” Tao said, “so. What did Anders have to say to you?”

Jongin followed him up the stairs to the third-floor entrance. “I can’t tell you,” he said quietly. “They swore me to secrecy. But they were right, it was important.” Jongin was actually glad he couldn’t tell, because most of what he had learned had been… terrifying.

Justice and Anders had shared a body for close to seven years, and as far as any of them knew, they held the record for the amount of time a human and spirit had co-existed. Anders referred to Justice as his friend, and had explained that he had known the spirit for weeks before he’d willingly offered up his body as host.

That was all well and good, almost heart-warming. What was much _less_ heartwarming were the warnings Anders had impressed upon him. 

Justice had been changed inexorably by his contact with Anders, and was now fighting every moment to keep from devolving completely into a demon of Vengeance. Every negative emotion Anders felt had the potential to enrage Justice, and Anders was increasingly incapable of controlling either Justice, or himself.

Worse, Justice was slowly degrading their body from the inside out. Slowly driving Anders insane. Anders had smiled, had even joked about it, but the look in Hawke’s eyes had told Jongin just how serious the situation really was. 

Anders was dying. That was the future Jongin had to look forward to.

He had some time - Anders said that things hadn’t really started to get bad until Justice had been with him for a couple of years - but eventually, his choices would be figure out how to separate himself from Ardor, or die young. Tao didn’t need to know that right now, though, and neither did Sehun. Anders had said he was already looking into it, and that if he found a way to separate himself from Justice, he’d let Jongin know right away.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d find a solution before his friends had to know that anything was wrong. Maybe he could save them the worry, the fear.

_I’m sorry, Jongin. I truly didn’t know this would happen._

Jongin knew that, now. He believed that Ardor had only been trying to help him. And Ardor _did_ help him, every day.

 _I’ll try to stay quiet,_ Ardor said. _Maybe if I am less active, it will hurt you less._

As Tao closed the door behind them, Jongin met his own eyes in the mirror above the washbasin, and sent Ardor a shower of the affection in his heart. I’m glad I met you.

The response was a sense of comfort, like being wrapped in a soft blanket. _And I you._

“Do you want to get breakfast?” Tao asked, rummaging through his pantry. “There’s not a lot here, but we can spare the funds to go buy some pastries or something.”

“Whatever you want to do. I’m not very hungry.” Jongin started washing his face. “Are we checking the caches today, or do we have a job lined up?”

Pulling a couple of day-old ham rolls from a basket, Tao came over to him. “No job per se, but I thought maybe we could try following up on those drug buyers.” He dropped the rolls on the table. Jongin covered them with wet hands and murmured a flash-fire spell, turning the water to steam and instantly heating and re-softening the slightly stale rolls. “You’re getting better at that.”

“Thanks,” Jongin said shyly, as he took one of the rolls. “You have a list? Can I see it?”

Shrugging, Tao grabbed the other roll and the parchment list off the table. “It’s right here, go ahead.”

So Jongin looked. He wasn’t really expecting to see any names he recognized, but considering he himself had been nabbed just outside the Gallows and the slavers had somehow also gotten ahold of Emile, it was worth checking.

The sudden memory of Emile’s still body made Jongin stop, mid-motion. Every time he forgot what he had done, something reminded him.

 _I’m sorry,_ Ardor said again.

No. That wasn’t Ardor’s fault. Jongin had let the power overwhelm him. He would do better next time, he would _not_ let his magic control him. Pursing his lips, he shook off the flash of sick guilt and determinedly skimmed down the list.

To his surprise, there actually was a name he recognized. “Phylias?” Jongin said. “ _Sister_ Phylias? Why would a Chantry sister be purchasing sense drugs?”

Blinking, Tao leaned over his shoulder. “You’re sure it’s the same Phylias?”

“How many people do _you_ know named Phylias?”

“Alright, point taken.” He plucked the list from Jongin’s fingers, and absently pressed a kiss to his cheek. His breath smelled like ham and Jongin smiled, blushing a little at the attention. “You know her well?”

“Not well,” Jongin admitted, turning around. “She would come up to the Gallows to take confessions sometimes, and to provide counseling. I went to see her once, right after the fire. She’s a sweet woman.” He snaked his hand around Tao’s waist, mostly just because he could. “I cannot imagine a reason for her to be buying drugs from an illegal poison-maker. We should check that out.”

Tao wrapped an arm around Jongin’s shoulders. “Walking right into the Chantry might not be the safest thing for you,” he pointed out. “Are you sure you want to come? I could probably handle it. Or we could ask Charade.”

“No, I want to come. I want to find whoever is stealing people off the streets and put a stop to it.” Something occurred to him, and he met Tao’s eyes. “Oh, I meant to say… I’m sorry, again, for what I said the other day. About the slavers, and you being a coward. I understand now why you wanted to stay away from them.”

Surprised, Tao said, “So you really saw everything, huh? In the Fade?” Jongin nodded. He’d been a silent watcher through the whole thing, as if it was all his own dream and not some odd conglomeration of the thoughts of four different minds. “Even the first part? With Ardor and me?”

Jongin’s cheeks heated a little, but he smiled. “Yeah, that too. And the part with Sehun in his room.”

“Mmm.” Tao’s smile was lascivious. “Yeah, I see now why you’re always mooning over him. What do you think, was that cock real or does he dream about being bigger?”

 _That’s how he pictures himself,_ Ardor said, sounding faintly amused.

“Ardor says that’s how he pictures himself, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least mostly accurate. He’s not really prone to exaggeration.” Jongin didn’t particularly care what Sehun’s cock looked like, as he was pretty sure he would adore any part of Sehun that the man would let him touch no matter _what_ it looked like, but he found Tao’s interest in it amusing.

Tao whistled, low. “So the rumors about Fereldan men are true, then? At least in his case. Good to know.” Jongin laughed, and Tao nudged him. “Finish your roll, and we’ll go visit the Sister.”

Jongin hadn't been inside Kirkwall's Chantry before. The Gallows had its own small Chantry space, used mostly by the Templars, and officials of the Chantry would come visit them often, but he hadn't been inside a proper Chantry since Starkhaven. It was a grand, beautiful space, white marble and red tiles, dominated by a two-story tall golden statue of Andraste, portrayed as a warrior maiden. Sisters and Mothers in red, grey and gold robes bustled about the place, punctuated by the occasional worshipper or penitent.

It was easy enough to just go up to a Sister he'd never seen before, smile bashfully, and politely ask to speak with Sister Phylias. He was brought to a small side room, one of the spaces the Chantry used to take confessions or provide counseling. A ripple in the air, barely visible, told Jongin that Tao was getting settled in the corner, ready to intervene if he was needed.

Phylias bustled into the room, all charcoal-grey robes and kind smiles. “Good morning!” she greeted. “How can I help you tod-” She paused, her eyes caught on Jongin’s face. “...Today?”

“Sister, good morning,” Jongin said, trying to stay relaxed, to keep his expression open and pleasant. Phylias had gone tense, and was not coming further into the room, and Jongin was trying not to panic. “I just have a question for you, if you don’t mind?”

 _She recognizes you,_ Ardor warned softly. _She knows who you are, Jongin!_

“I - yes, of course!” Phylias’s smile was fake. She moved around the room, facing Jongin the entire time. “What was your question, child?” She leaned back against the wall, her hands behind her back, groping for the pull-cord there. An alarm bell of some kind?

The shadows flashed. A hand-shape reached behind Phylias, catching her wrist. “Don’t,” Tao warned, soft and menacing.

Wide-eyed, Phylias glanced between the seeming nothingness that held her, and Jongin. “Maleficar,” she spat, half hateful and half fearful. She opened her mouth again, drawing in a deep breath as if preparing to scream.

Jongin was out of the chair and holding his hand over her mouth before he realized he was acting. His fingers were sparking green. “Hush, Sister, we mean you no harm,” he said, catching her eyes. “Look at me.” Fearful hazel eyes met his, and Jongin felt Ardor working through him, turning his own natural ability to cause fear inside out, taking Phylias’s fear away. “That’s it. We just need to ask you one question, that’s all. You’re safe.”

The shadows melted from around Tao. He came closer, adjusting his grip so that he was holding Phylias more firmly, and glanced at Jongin trepidatiously. Jongin didn’t look at him - better if Phylias never saw Tao’s face.

“Sister,” Jongin said softly. “You recently made a purchase from a merchant named Tomwise. What did you buy, and why?”

Dark, over-plucked brows furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phylias said. Her voice was trembling.

“Dark haired elf, makes shop in the Undercity,” Tao murmured. “Big ears, even for an elf. Also sells out of his home in the Alienage, sometimes.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea, I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “Don’t hurt me, please!”

 _Something’s wrong with her,_ Ardor muttered. _Can I…?_

Jongin exhaled, and let Ardor in. Green light reflected on Phylias’s face, and her eyes widened fearfully for only one moment. Then, Jongin brushed his hand down her cheek, and her head tipped listlessly to the side, her eyes glassing over.

“I repeat my question,” Ardor said, turning Jongin’s voice too deep. “What did you buy, and why?”

“I have no memory of making a purchase from an elf named Tomwise,” Phylias said, in an odd monotone.

Tao frowned. “That’s an odd way to word that. You have no memory of it? You can’t say for sure whether you did or not?”

“Part of my memory is missing,” Phylias said, and Jongin and Tao exchanged surprised glances. “A few weeks ago, I lost an entire day’s worth of time. I was found in the street outside the Chantry with no memory of where I had been or what I had done.” She recited this calmly, even though Jongin could feel her will struggling wildly against Ardor’s grip. “Grand Cleric Elthina brought in the First Enchanter to examine me. He said it was done by blood magic.” Her gaze flickered. “When I saw you today, I assumed it must have been you who did this, and that you were here to finish me off.”

“Oh, Sister, no,” Jongin said, his own concern breaking through Ardor’s hold. “This wasn’t me. I’m so sorry that happened to you.” He bit his lip. “And I’m sorry, but I have to do it to you again. Andraste, forgive me.”

Green light flashed in his hands, Ardor working directly upon Phylias’s mind and burying the last ten minutes in her memory. At Jongin’s internal urging, Ardor even went the extra lengths to replace the memory with a false one, just so that Phylias wouldn’t have to deal with the mental stress and fear that would come from losing more time.

After a moment, Ardor let her go, and she collapsed into Jongin’s arms. He carefully lifted her and arranged her in the nearby chair.

“Jongin…?” Tao asked, wary.

“She’ll wake in about a minute, and her memory will tell her that she was waiting for a penitent. She’ll wait until she realizes no one is coming.” Jongin jerked his head at the door. “We need to be long gone by then.”

Obviously not happy with this, Tao remained silent, fading once more into the shadows. Jongin quickly fixed his slightly mussed clothing and strode out of the room, trying to project the simple confidence of someone who was welcome to be where they were.

On the way out the door, Jongin nearly bumped into a fast-moving young woman wearing courier’s garb. “Delivery for the Grand Cleric,” the woman said, waving a letter in the general direction of the nearest Sister. “Please take me to her, my orders are to put this in her hands myself.”

The Sister ushered the courier towards the back, and as they passed, Jongin noticed the wax seal on the letter was bright orange.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Agatha and Mettin refused to tell Sehun and Baekhyun anything, and refused to let them pass. Unless they actually raised swords against a superior officer - something Baekhyun was nearly ready to do, but Sehun held him back, knowing it was suicide - they had no choice but to report to their duties and wait.

An entire shift went by before they had any other news, and when it came, it was in the form of Alain limping down the hall. Sehun saw Baekhyun making a beeline for the mage and cursed under his breath, looking around to see if anyone was watching before he abandoned his post to follow them.

He caught up with them just inside the apprentices’ library, in time to see Baekhyun planting his ass on the table as Alain sank tiredly into a chair. “What happened!?” Baekhyun asked urgently.

“Grace happened,” Alain muttered, dropping his head into his hands. “It was going fine, Hawke was even listening to us. I think he knew his brother wasn’t actually in any danger.” He shook his head. “As soon as Thrask ordered us to free Carver, she turned. She ordered _me_ to kill him. To prove my loyalty, or something.”

“That’s insane,” Baekhyun said.

“I know. I refused.” Alain’s eyes fluttered closed. “She was a maleficar. I don’t know how long. She killed Thrask and she called a demon to her. I watched her become an abomination before my eyes.” He exhaled. “A Pride demon.”

Sehun’s stomach flipped. “Maker, what is _happening_ to the Gallows?”

“Hawke killed her, and everyone else who stood with her. Only Yixing and I refused to attack him, all the rest backed Grace.” He pulled a hand down his face. “Grace had bound Carver Hawke with blood magic, so blood magic was needed to unbind him. Yixing volunteered to do it, so that I wouldn’t have to. Cullen arrived just in time to see Yixing slit his wrist.”

Baekhyun’s face went white.

“You know how it is with the Dalish. Blood magic is dangerous, they know that, but it isn’t _blasphemy_ like it is to us. Yixing only saw it as a necessary risk. But Cullen saw proof of maleficarum.” He shook his head. “I don’t think they really believed either of us, not even with the Champion’s word that we had tried to stop our fellows. I only got off because Karras vouched for me.”

“Wait - what?” Sehun put his hand on Alain’s shoulder. “ _Karras_ vouched for you?”

Dark eyes dropped, miserable. “Karras always protects me,” Alain whispered. “It’s part of our… Arrangement.”

It took a moment, a long moment, for the meaning to sink in. Then, Sehun connected the words with what he had seen in Jongin’s nightmares, and he realized just what, _exactly,_ Alain referred to.

“No. Alain, oh _Maker_ \- ”

Shrugging miserably, Alain wouldn’t look up. “I’ve always been willing to do anything to ensure my own safety,” he said. “I have no pride, only self-preservation. Yixing isn’t like that. He’ll spit in the man’s face before he’ll get on his knees to save his own skin, and I fear that is going to be his undoing now.” He finally met Baekhyun’s eyes. “Karras has reason to hate him, Cullen has evidence in front of him, and Meredith is looking for someone to punish, someone to publically pin the blame on. It’s only by luck and Karras’s intervention that it isn’t me.”

Baekhyun jumped to his feet. “We’re getting him out of there,” he said sharply. “ _Now._ I don’t care what it takes.” He looked to Sehun with a question in his eyes.

It was a question Sehun would have had to ponder even a few weeks ago, but today the answer was clear before him. “I’m with you,” he said. “Let’s go.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin’s gesturing was a bit unsubtle, but it got his point across, and as he walked out the front doors of the Chantry and out into Hightown, Tao peeled away from him and crept back through the shadows, following the courier as she was led back to the Grand Cleric’s office.

Grand Cleric Elthina was a kind-looking older woman, dark grey hair pulled back in a neat braided bun and blue-grey eyes edged with deep crow’s feet. She stood as the courier entered, and Tao slunk in behind her, keeping to the shadows near the door, at the edge of the candlelight.

Elthina thanked the courier and took the letter. The seal was definitely the same one that they had seen in their shared dream, but did that mean anything?

Her task complete, the courier left, and Elthina sat again at her desk and popped the letter open. Remaining as silent as he could, Tao slowly made his way around the room, and peered over her shoulder.

It was hard to see without getting too close, and the handwriting was flowery as the prose, but Tao managed to make out something about the Viscount’s office, and _once more, I must request._ There was no signature, only a single initial, a V.

In his attempts to get closer, to see more, Tao accidentally scuffed his boot against the tile. Elthina immediately looked up in alarm, glancing around the room, forcing Tao to retreat into the shadows and hold his breath.

When she was finally reassured that she was alone, Elthina finished reading the missive. Then she sighed, shook her head, and held the letter over the nearby candle until it caught fire. She dropped it on the stone tiles next to her desk, and watched it as it burned.

While she was occupied with this, Tao slunk back out of her office, keeping to the shadows until he was out of the Chantry entirely.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Sehun and Baekhyun ran, as fast as they could in full armor, across the Gallows and up the stairs to the officers’ wing.

It was hard to believe this was happening. Going against his senior officers verbally was one thing, but they were planning to _attack_ the officers. It was, very possibly, suicide.

But Baekhyun had always stood with Sehun, and Yixing had faithfully kept Sehun’s secret about Jongin’s phylactery, and Sehun just could not shake the feeling that something was really, really wrong, and that they had to hurry.

They blazed around the corner in a clatter of metal, both of them with hands on swords, ready to draw. But Agatha and Mettin were already standing to the side, and the door to the officers’ wing was standing open.

Baekhyun skid to a halt, and Sehun tried not to bump into him, his stomach dropping into his boots and staying there.

If the door was open, then the judgement had been made.

Karras exited first. He saw Sehun and Baekhyun, both with hands still on the hilts of their swords, and grinned with such evil glee, it took all of Sehun’s will not to draw on him right then. “You’re a bit too late, boys,” he said as he passed. “One less knife-eared maleficar to stain the halls.”

Baekhyun snarled and turned, but Sehun stopped him, grabbing his sword arm before he could draw. “Baekhyun,” he whispered.

Because Cullen was exiting the officers’ quarters now, his arm curled protectively around Yixing’s shoulders. Yixing’s robes were bloody, but he didn’t appear to be injured, and Sehun nearly breathed a sigh of relief.

And then he saw the brand. A bright red sunburst, burned into Yixing’s forehead, destroying the graceful Dalish tattoos on his skin.

Sehun nearly threw up on the spot.

“Yixing,” Baekhyun gasped. “No, please, Maker _no_ -”

Yixing met his eyes with complete, heartbreaking dispassion. “Baekhyun,” he said, his voice horrifyingly monotone. “Why do you look at me like that?”

Baekhyun collapsed, right there. Right in the hallway. He dropped to his knees, tears already pouring down his face, and as Cullen led Yixing away, Baekhyun _screamed._

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Cullen was back at his office, Sehun was already there, pacing in front of his door. “We need to talk,” he said, and all but shoved Cullen into his office.

Cullen didn’t even reprimand him for disrespecting a superior officer, which was probably a bad sign. “Please calm down, knight,” he said, and Sehun couldn’t even muster sympathy for how defeated he sounded.

“I will _not_ calm down,” Sehun snapped, furious. “The Rite of Tranquility is meant to be used as a _last resort_ on mages who cannot control their own magic and are a danger to themselves because of it. You know as well as I do how much control Yixing had, don’t you _dare_ try to tell me that he needed the Rite!”

“I _know!_ ” Cullen yelled, and Sehun stepped back, surprised. Exhaling, Cullen quieted himself. “I know. Maker have mercy, I _tried_ to stop them.” Cullen ran his hand through his wiry blond hair, making it stand on end. “Meredith gave the order. I protested, but short of turning on her physically there was nothing I could do.”

“ _Meredith_ ordered this?” Sehun said, shocked. Cullen nodded. “Then you _should_ have turned on her. You should have stopped this, Cullen, he’s essentially _dead_ now. Tranquility is irreversible. Everything that he was is _gone!_ ”

Sitting heavily on the edge of his desk, Cullen said, “Not everything. His memories are still there, and his non-magical talents, his knowledge.”

“You can’t really believe that. You can’t _really_ believe that this isn’t murder, just as surely as slitting his throat would be.” Cullen looked down, and Sehun scoffed, a short, disbelieving laugh. “Maker’s balls. Anything that helps you sleep at night, huh? And here I thought you were someone to admire.” He shook his head. “You care more about your position than you do about these mages’ lives.”

Amber eyes, lighter than Sehun’s own, pulled up to meet his. “You think this is about my _captaincy?_ ” Cullen asked incredulously. “Meredith would have _killed me._ There are hundreds of mages in this tower, Sehun, and lots of them are _children._ Who will protect them if I am gone? You?” His eyes bored into Sehun’s. “I see it all. I see the abuses, the beatings, the rape. I see every mage who is made Tranquil for no good reason and every mage who succumbs to demons out of fear and desperation. And for every abuse they suffer, another abuse is _averted_ because I changed the schedule, or put myself in the library at a certain time, or assigned a certain Knight to wall duty.”

Sehun’s eyes were wide with horror, he couldn’t help it. “Cullen… it’s that bad?”

“It is. And it gets worse, because some of the older mages take out their anger and frustration on the younger recruits, too. Didn’t Baekhyun ever tell you what happened to him, why he wasn’t allowed to take his vows?” Wide-eyed, Sehun shook his head. “He was imprisoned and tortured by blood mages who were forcibly turning recruits into abominations.” 

What? What the _fuck?_ “Non-mages can’t become abominations,” Sehun said.

“We thought so too, but it turns out _anyone_ can be possessed if the right ritual is used,” Cullen said. “Hawke found him and rescued him, but we have only Hawke’s word that Baekhyun was never infested with a demon himself. Demons can lay dormant for years, so we can’t let him take vows, not until we’re completely sure. So yes, sometimes the mages are the aggressors, too. I end up having to protect _both_ sides from each other.” He put his head in his hands. “I thought what I lived through at the Fereldan circle was a nightmare, but this… This is worse.”

Slowly, Sehun sat in the chair across from him.

“Honestly, the title of Knight-Captain means little now,” Cullen said. “Meredith barely listens to me, and Karras completely _trounced_ me in the yards yesterday, I only just managed to stop him before he killed me. He’s taking so much lyrium, I’m not sure he can even be considered human anymore.”

“How can that be allowed?” Sehun asked. “The Chantry keeps such tight control on the lyrium - ”

Cullen shook his head. “They don’t know about it,” he said. “Or maybe they do, I don’t know. In any case, Meredith knows, and she has done nothing. I don’t know where the extra lyrium is coming from, but it’s not the Chantry, and Meredith is using it to make all the knights as dependant on her as possible.” He sighed. “She wants them radical, not rational.”

“This is insane,” Sehun said, not for the first time that day. “This is _beyond_ insane. How can you just let this go on? We’re treating mages like _animals!_ ”

“They are not without the ability to protect themselves,” Cullen pointed out. “From the youngest apprentices to the Senior Enchanters, mages have power that no one else has. Power they can, and they _will_ use, if they feel driven to it, and sometimes _without_ being driven to it.” Sehun opened his mouth to protest, and Cullen snapped, “Ask Baekhyun how many of his yearmates he saw brutally murdered, and _then_ argue with me.” 

Sehun shut up.

Cullen shook his head. “Part of the duty of the Templar is to ensure that the mages’ lives are safe and secure enough that they _never need to use that power,_ because when they do, it is _disastrous._ ”

It was a good point, and despite his years of study, it was one that Sehun had never really considered before. “But that isn’t how it’s working here,” he argued. “The Gallows is a pot boiling over, Cullen, and I don’t want to be on top of it when it explodes.”

“I will not run,” Cullen said. “I swore an oath, Sehun, and part of that oath was to protect these mages, not just to protect the world _from_ them. As long as I can help them, as long as Meredith trusts me enough to let me make the schedules and influence the recruits, I’m not going anywhere.” He looked so very tired. “Losing Thrask is a huge blow. He was the only remaining officer actively trying to protect the mages and diffuse the tension. Mettin is almost as extremist as Karras, he’s just better at hiding it, and Agatha just follows her orders. Without Thrask, I’m on my own.”

Sehun stayed silent, his stomach tied in squirming knots. What could he say?

“If you want to leave, that's your right,” Cullen said wearily. “I certainly wouldn't blame you for it. But I hope you'll stay. You're one of the few knights left that I never have to worry about.”

“...I don't know,” Sehun said miserably. “I don't know what I will do.”

Cullen didn’t look surprised. “Let me know when you decide.” He stood. “Now, if you'll forgive me, the events of the past few days have left me with quite a lot of paperwork to do.”

Feeling even worse than when he entered, Sehun nodded, and let himself out.

Concentrating on his duties today was all but impossible, but Sehun forced his mind not to wander. Now that he knew just exactly what was going on in the Gallows, he noticed a lot of things he'd been completely blind to before.

He saw how the mages stuck close by each other, shifting away when a Templar came too close. He saw the way some of the older knights’ gazes wandered, and now that he was looking for it, he saw the veiled threats and innuendos, too.

He guessed, now, that it was no accident that he was rarely assigned wall or gate guard duty. Other knights had accused him of being Cullen's lapdog, but Sehun realized that he was always assigned mage-guarding positions because Cullen trusted him to be around mages, and he _didn't_ trust some of the others.

With his eyes now opened to what had been happening, Sehun decided he needed to be in the middle of it. He intervened when he saw Verne trying to start another fight with an older Enchanter, and he volunteered to walk two teenaged apprentices back to their dorm after lessons, staying close enough that no off-duty Templars approached.

Sehun also paid much closer attention to the knights around him, determining which ones were cruel for the sake of cruelty, which ones were jittery from lyrium overuse, and which ones were genuinely afraid of the mages and saw blood magic and demons in every shadow. Those, he knew, would be the most dangerous.

Neither Baekhyun nor Yixing came to dinner. So Sehun packed up some food in a basket, and went looking for them. He eventually found them, and Alain, in Yixing’s new quarters amongst the Tranquil and scholars, unpacking and helping him to get settled in. “I brought dinner,” he announced.

“Oh, that was sweet of you,” Alain said, even as Yixing said, “Thank you,” in his new, plain monotone. Never before had the difference between genuine gratitude and rote recitation of pleasantry been more chilling.

Sehun set the basket on the table, no longer hungry.

Baekhyun was at the wardrobe, hanging up Yixing’s robes with shaking hands and red eyes that had clearly cried themselves out hours beforehand. Had he seriously been tortured by blood mages? And yet he’d still risked his life to join the rebellion? Sehun wanted to ask, but he knew now was not the time, so he got Baekhyun’s attention with a tap on his shoulder instead. “You should eat,” he said quietly.

Without looking at him, Baekhyun shook his head. “Not hungry,” he said.

“Baekhyun,” Alain said, a gentle reproach.

Baekhyun looked up at him, expression twisted, and then at Yixing, who was watching the room with guileless eyes. “Well? Don’t you have anything to add?”

“You are distressed,” Yixing observed.

Sehun swallowed down nausea as Baekhyun whirled on Yixing. “Distressed? Sure, yeah, that’s one way to put it. Do you even have any idea _why?_ ”

Yixing’s expression was blank, open. “Because I have often, in the past, forced you to eat when you were not hungry.”

Baekhyun looked like his world was collapsing. “And now? Today?”

“There is no reason to do such a thing. You are fully aware that your body needs nourishment. If you do not eat, that is your own choice.”

Baekhyun stared at him. Yixing met his gaze, but there was… nothing there. Nothing behind his eyes.

“I can’t do this,” Baekhyun muttered. “I _can’t._ ” Dropping the clothes in his hands unceremoniously to the floor, Baekhyun took off.

Alain and Sehun looked at each other. “Stay here,” Sehun said numbly. “I’ll go.” Alain nodded, and Sehun left the room, following the sound of Baekhyun’s footsteps down the hall. He trailed him all the way across the Gallows and to the recruits’ dormitories, and found him pulling clothes out of his wardrobe and stuffing them into a pack.

“Baekhyun?”

“I’m leaving, Sehun.” Baekhyun didn’t stop packing. “I can’t be here anymore, I can’t walk past that - that _thing_ that used to be my Yixing. I can’t serve the people who did this to him.”

Sehun couldn’t even blame him. He came further into the room, covering Baekhyun’s hands with his own, trying to stop the tremble in his fingers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If we’d gotten there just a little sooner - ”

“No,” Baekhyun said harshly, pulling his hands away. “This is not _my_ fault, this is not _your_ fault. This is on Meredith. I _trusted_ her, Sehun, even knowing what she is, what she’s done. Like an idiot, I trusted that she would be reasonable, that she would be _fair._ Everyone goes on and on about how _just_ she is, but this? This is not justice, this is murder. Plain and simple. And I won’t be a part of it anymore.”

He glanced up at Sehun, stilling. 

“You aren’t going to argue with me?”

Sehun shook his head. “In your place, I would do the same,” he confessed. It was bad enough seeing Yixing like that, someone he considered a friend. If it had been Jongin… He shuddered, his mind shying away from the thought.

Baekhyun returned to packing his bag. “I know you’re dependant on the lyrium,” he said, “but you should leave, too. Maybe the Templars in other Circles still uphold their oaths, but not here.” He slammed his bag shut. “It’s not the mages who are the monsters in Kirkwall. Not anymore.”

Sehun remained silent, because he didn’t disagree.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

His first year in Kirkwall, paranoia and recurring nightmares about being dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night had led Tao to save every coin he could find, earn, or steal, hoarding it all until he could buy the very best wards possible. Only once they were laid down, once his little hovel was hidden away and protected, did Tao finally begin to sleep through the night.

That was, unless someone tripped them. And someone was tripping them now, shrill alarms jangling inside Tao’s head, warning him that someone was trying to find him.

Immediately alert, Tao slid out of bed without disturbing Jongin and grabbed his knife belts. Silently, he slipped out the trapdoor and onto the roof. He pulled the shadows around himself as he buckled the belts on, two around his hips and one draped across his body from the shoulder, and leaned over the edge of the building, looking into the alleyway.

Familiar blond hair reflected moonlight back up at him.

“Again?” Tao muttered, but something tight in his chest eased. By now, he believed that Sehun wasn’t here to hurt him or Jongin. Still, the man could be unpredictable, so Tao stayed within the shadows, dropping down the ladder on the other side of the building to come at Sehun from the mouth of the alley.

Sehun heard Tao’s approach; that much was clear from the way he stopped pacing, freezing in place with head cocked. Tao stayed quiet and circled him for a moment, waiting to see what he would do.

Still not looking at him, Sehun’s lips twitched up. “Not going to pin me from behind this time?” he asked.

Tao took silent steps as he spoke, resulting in his words seeming to come from all around Sehun’s right side. “If you want me to pin you down, just ask,” he purred.

A soft snort. “Not tonight,” Sehun muttered. He stood up straight and dropped his weapons in a clatter, sword and shield tossed against the side of the building. “I’m here for something else.”

Interesting. “Out with it, then,” Tao murmured.

Sehun’s head swivelled. Tao could see the moment when Sehun pinpointed his footsteps, and stopped moving immediately. They were both silent for a long breath.

Eyes raising to look right at him, Sehun said, “Hit me.”

Pulling the shadows so close around him that they became like a blanket to muffle his boots, Tao took another careful step. Sehun’s eyes stayed where he had been. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

“I don’t know, because I asked you nicely? I need the distraction. Come on, I’m unarmed, and allotments aren’t until tomorrow night so there’s barely even any lyrium in me. If there was ever a time when you could take me, it’s now.” He cocked his head. “Don’t ask me why, but I trust you won’t actually try to kill me, and frankly that’s more than I can say for most of my fellow knights at the moment.”

He wanted to spar? Really? “It’s the middle of the night,” Tao said. “You can’t seriously have come all this way just in the hopes that I would beat the stuffing out of you.”

Another snort, this one louder. “I didn’t say it was a _healthy_ coping mechanism,” Sehun said, and despite himself, Tao’s lips twitched into a smile. “Come on, hit me. I’ll go easy on you, I promise.”

Why not? In the interest of sportsmanship, Tao left his knives sheathed, and pulled on the leather gloves from his belt-pouch instead. “Alright, if that’s what you really want,” he said, and immediately darted around Sehun’s back.

Sehun heard him and turned. He was fast, but Tao was faster, and had the advantage of being able to clearly see his opponent. He kicked at the back of Sehun’s knee, just hard enough to make him stumble and hesitate, and jabbed the side of his fist up under Sehun’s armpit where his armor gapped. Confused, Sehun whirled, but Tao had already melted back into the shadows.

“If I was holding a knife,” he said, “you would be bleeding out right now.”

Sehun’s expression twisted, and he lunged towards Tao’s voice, but again, Tao sidestepped, swirling both hands to redirect Sehun’s away from him and striking him sharply on the back of the neck.

“Dead.”

A long leg shot out and tangled around his own. Tao leaned back and grabbed the nearby staircase rail over his head, pulling his feet out of the hold and kicking out heels-first, catching Sehun directly in the chest. He stumbled back, and Tao swung his legs out again, letting the momentum throw him forward and right into Sehun. They went down in a tangle of limbs.

Tao ended up on top, with his fist pressed to the front of Sehun’s throat. “Aaaand you’re dead,” he said, grinning.

“Maker, you’re obnoxious,” Sehun growled, and caught Tao’s arm with both hands. Tao gasped as he was wrenched forcefully to the side, and Sehun rolled on top of him now with a hand around Tao’s throat - not choking, just _there._ “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

“Why aren’t I - You _dragged me out of bed_ for this, you ass. You’re lucky I’m wearing _anything._ ” Tao tried to pry Sehun’s fingers away, and couldn’t; even without being pumped full of lyrium, Sehun’s grip was like iron. Instead, he hit the inside of Sehun’s elbow as hard as he could, forcing his arm to bend and his grip to loosen enough for Tao to get his neck free. Tao mimed jabbing a dagger up under Sehun’s breastplate and into his belly. “And you’re dead again. Come on, you should have caught that one, are you even trying?” He smirked. “Or is my bare chest distracting you?”

Snarling under his breath, Sehun pulled back and got to his feet. “Again. I can almost see you when you do the shadow thing, now.”

Tao rolled up onto his feet as well, keeping his distance. “Oh? Well then, come and get me.” He stepped back into the shadows, fading from sight.

For a while, it went like that, both of them dancing around each other, striking too lightly to be real. Tao was not by any means a brawler, preferring to stab once rather than take the time to actually subdue someone with blunt force, and Sehun was clearly pulling his punches. Even so, when those strikes did land, they left Tao’s bones rattling, spiking adrenaline through his blood.

“Stop - ugh - stop _ducking,_ you asshole,” Sehun grunted, as another punch whiffed by Tao’s shoulder.

“If you wanted someone who would let you hit them, you probably should have stuck to sparring with your little Templar friends,” Tao shot back, twisting under Sehun’s arm and hauling his wrist up behind his back. He wrapped his hand around Sehun’s throat again from behind. “Another kill for me.”

Sehun’s hand closed around Tao’s wrist. He pushed and spun, overpowering Tao’s grip on him completely and reversing their positions. Tao threw up his free arm just in time to protect his face from being ground into brick as Sehun shoved him into the wall of the alley.

“If you fought with _honor,_ ” Sehun said, “then I would have won a dozen times over by now.” He leaned close to say it, breath hot on the back of Tao’s neck.

Tao couldn’t help but laugh. “And that’s why I don’t,” he agreed. He jerked, trying to pull his arm from Sehun’s grip, but there was no breaking out, not from this angle. “I’d rather be dishonorable than dead, any day.” Without any other options, Tao decided dishonor was the name of the game now, and popped his hips back, purposely grinding his ass slow and rough against Sehun’s crotch.

A choked gasp, and the grip on his arms loosened in surprise. Tao yanked free and slipped into the shadows again, laughing.

Sehun’s face was bright red, and he looked caught between embarrassment and fury. “You are the _worst,_ ” he snapped.

“You’re so adorable,” Tao cooed, mostly because it was funny, but also because he hoped it would make Sehun blush more. It did. Unfortunately, it also alerted Sehun to where Tao was, because his hands shot out, and he grabbed Tao by the knife belt and bull-rushed him against the wall, pinning him there with his entire body.

Before Tao could make another witty quip or attempt to wriggle free, Sehun descended on him, kissing him so hard that his head thunked back against the brick. His mouth was _hot,_ like his internal temperature was several degrees higher than Tao’s, and Tao froze in surprise for one second, resisted for all of two, and then gave in, licking enthusiastically past Sehun’s lips.

Sehun groaned, and Tao literally could not tell if it was a groan of frustration or arousal, but he crowded closer, leather and chain and insistent lips. His grip on Tao had gentled, and one of his hands was creeping up the side of Tao’s neck, fingers pressing into his jaw and tangling in his hair. The fact that Sehun was fully armored and Tao was in nothing but trousers was deeply unfair; Tao desperately wanted to touch his skin. He whined softly, pulling Sehun closer and deepening the kiss.

“Fuck,” Sehun muttered against his lips, and Tao huffed a laugh, clawing at his back to try and get better purchase on the leather. “You are so _fucking. Infuriating._ ” Both of the last words were punctuated by teeth, nipping first at Tao’s bottom lip, then ducking down to dig into the side of his neck.

“Apparently,” Tao gasped, “you like it.” Sehun made another little rumbling noise deep in his throat and pulled Tao closer, leather gauntlets wrapping around Tao’s bare waist as his mouth travelled down. Tao arched into it. “Ahh, mmm. This is _so_ much better than you beating the shit out of me.”

A grunt. “That’s still not off the table,” Sehun muttered, but he pulled away, and rested his forehead against Tao’s chest for one moment, hunched over. “Maker, what the _fuck_ am I doing?”

The snarky reply was right there on Tao’s tongue - _well, you see, when two sexy people hate each other very much_ \- but he bit it back, because even he could tell that a badly-timed joke would drive Sehun away at this point, and that was the _opposite_ of what he wanted. “Distracting yourself, right?” he said instead, letting his tone gentle, his volume soften. Sehun looked up at him. “Happy to assist.”

Amber eyes, turned almost silver by the bluish moonlight, closed. “I shouldn’t have come here, but I - there was nowhere else.”

Tao squeezed his shoulders. “Do you want to come inside?” he asked, surprising even himself. “Jongin would want to see you, and I… wouldn’t mind it.”

Sehun shook his head. “Not tonight, it’s too risky. But thank you.” He straightened, and there were - tears in his eyes? What?

Tao finally realized that this wasn’t a normal visit. Something had happened, something that was really messing with Sehun’s head, and he’d come here because he didn’t want to be alone.

A sobering thought, but Tao felt… almost honored by it.

Tao kissed him again, gentler this time. Sehun accepted the kiss, and Tao _really_ needed to stop getting so emotionally invested in things, this was getting ridiculous. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, against his better judgement.

“I shouldn’t,” Sehun said, “but…” He sighed. “Today I… lost a friend. Someone I trusted. And now my best friend at the Gallows is resigning.” Tao cocked his head, listening. Sehun was having trouble meeting his eyes, which was probably a bad sign. “He told me I should resign too, and I’m… not sure what to do.”

“What brought this on?” Tao asked.

“I guess I just had my eyes opened.” Sehun shrugged unhappily. “I’d only ever looked at the Gallows from the perspective of a Templar, and not a very observant one at that. Seeing it through Jongin’s eyes… It’s an entirely different place than what I thought. All the little things that had been vaguely bothering me suddenly came together into one nasty picture.” He sighed. “But my commanding officer made me realize that if I leave, there is one less person who might stand between the mages and those Templars that abuse them.”

Ah. Now Tao saw the real crux of the issue. “Either you stay and fight the corruption from the inside, or you get out before you are corrupted,” he guessed.

Sehun’s lips twisted unhappily. “Essentially.”

“Well, here, let me put that into perspective for you,” Tao said. He cupped Sehun’s neck with his palm, his thumb absently stroking Sehun’s cheek. “If it was me, I would be out of there. I would get myself away from those abusive, power-hungry bastards as fast as I could run.” Sehun’s eyes widened, and Tao flashed him a smile. “But I wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place, because I have never, not once, put someone else’s safety over my own. You aren’t me, Sehun. You aren’t like that.”

“You’ve put Jongin’s safety over your own,” Sehun murmured. “I’ve seen you do it.”

Cheeks heating, Tao waved that off. “Alright, fine, _before I met Jongin_ I had never put someone else’s safety above my own. Sehun, when those thugs attacked us the other night, you put yourself between them and me without even a _second’s_ hesitation, and you don’t even _like_ me very much.” He prodded Sehun’s leather-covered chest. “ _That_ is who you are. No one would blame you for getting out, and a lot of people would even applaud you, but I don’t believe for a second that you would really do that. As long as there are people who need you, you’re going to stay, because you’re a self-sacrificing _idiot._ ”

“I’m flattered that you think so highly of me,” Sehun said wryly.

He kind of did, actually. Honor like that was rare. “It’s your choice. No one can decide this for you, certainly not me, and if there’s ever a time to break character, it’s now. But it would surprise me if you left.”

“No, you’re right,” Sehun said. “I’m not going to leave. Not while I can still do good, even if I have to wade neck-deep in shit to do it.” He took a deep breath. “Thank you. I think I just needed someone to cut through all the noise.”

“Just call me the Slayer of Bullshit.”

Despite the mood, Sehun cracked a smile. “I don’t think I will, but thanks.” Leaning in, he pressed another kiss to Tao’s lips, close-mouthed and soft. “I should go. I’ve already been gone too long. Tao, can I ask you a favor?”

Letting his eyes flutter open, Tao said, “If you keep kissing me like that, you can ask me anything.”

“Hah.” Sehun started to blush again. “It’s just - my friend. He enlisted when he was just a kid, like me, he’s never known anything else. If I send him your way, can you just… I don’t know. Help him get settled? He’ll need work, and a place to live, and - after what happened today, he shouldn’t be out here alone.”

It was a big request, and Tao was flattered that Sehun would trust him enough. “I know some people he can talk to. I’ll point him in the right direction, sure.”

Exhaling, Sehun nodded. “Thank you, that would ease my mind, a little. He’s leaving in the morning, I’ll be sure to tell him before he goes.”

“Oh! I have a question for you, too. Before I forget.” Sehun blinked at him. “You remember that orange wax seal we saw in the Fade? Did you ever figure out where you saw it?”

“I didn’t, why?” Sehun said, confused.

Tao flapped a hand at him dismissively. “We saw it in the waking world too, so I was wondering. It’s probably nothing, but, just, if you remember...”

“Yeah. I’ll let you know.” A bell chimed faintly in the distance, and Sehun made a face. “Shit. If I want to get any sleep at all tonight, I should head back now.” He glanced back at Tao, and bit his lip. “Sorry for dragging you out of bed.”

“You should be. Next time, I’m going to drag you _into_ bed,” Tao said, poking Sehun threateningly. It made a small smile appear, which was a victory. “Go back to your battlefield, hero. We’ll be here if you need us.”

“Surprisingly,” Sehun said, “that actually is a comfort.” He took a step to the side and scooped up his sword and shield. Flashing Tao a salute, he disappeared back out onto the street.

Unsettled by Sehun’s unsettlement, Tao went back inside and silently slipped into bed. Jongin unconsciously rolled towards him, and he closed his eyes.

Sleep was a long time coming.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin woke up slowly, becoming aware in stages of light, of the sounds of the market waking, of lips on his neck and a firm line of morning wood pressing against his thigh. He smiled, humming under his breath. “Morning,” he murmured.

Tao groaned, burying his face in Jongin’s shoulder. “Not yet, please,” he grumbled, even as his hips shifted restlessly. Jongin chuckled and wrapped a hand around Tao’s ass, pulling him closer, and Tao groaned on a different note this time, thrusting forward. “Fuck, you feel good.”

A faint voice in the back of Jongin’s mind agreed. Ardor was interested in this, curious. Feeling affectionate, Jongin pushed Tao gently onto his back and rolled on top of him, straddling his hips.

In the thin rays of morning sunlight, Tao’s silver jewelry glinted, bright against dusky skin and long, messy black hair. Jongin rolled his hips down, and Tao threw his head back, lips parting silently. He thrust up, his hands sliding up over Jongin’s thighs.

Leaning forward, Jongin braced his elbows against the bed, hooked his hands under Tao’s arms to encourage Tao to hold him, and changed the angle of his hips until their cocks aligned. “Tao,” he whispered, chests pressed close enough together to feel Tao’s gasp escape. “Can I make you come?”

Still-sleepy eyes fluttered open, black irises turned reddish brown at the edges by the angled sunlight. “Please,” Tao breathed, not quite awake enough yet to be anything but genuine.

 _He’s beautiful,_ Ardor whispered, sliding into Jongin’s skin for a moment to feel Tao for itself. It kissed Tao softly, and Jongin wondered for a moment if Tao could tell the difference.

Careful, Jongin thought. Ardor pulled back, pouting, but both of them knew that they had to be cautious about exposing Ardor too heavily to Jongin’s desires. To Tao, Jongin smiled, and murmured against his lips. “Do you want my mouth?”

“Oh,” Tao breathed, and his cock jerked against Jongin’s, eager. “Fuck, you are nowhere near as innocent as you look.” That made Jongin snicker. “No, I - not this morning. Stay up here, I like kissing you.” He carded his fingers through Jongin’s hair. “Use your hand. Come with me?”

“Sounds good,” Jongin said, and rolled them both onto their sides.

It was a moment’s work to pull open the closures on their trousers - a drawstring on Jongin’s, and a buttoned fly on Tao’s - and push them down. The smallclothes were next, shoved unceremoniously out of the way.

They hadn’t gone this far yet, but it felt easy, natural. The obvious next step. Jongin admired Tao’s cock for a moment, rubbing his thumb gently up under the head, before he pushed close and wrapped his hand around them both.

Moaning softly, Tao immediately began to thrust, small rocking motions at first, but the friction between them made it feel much more intense. Jongin wasn’t entirely sure if the whimper in his throat was his own, or Ardor’s, as the spirit was practically bathing itself in the sensation. He got the sense that Ardor had never known something like this _existed,_ let alone what it felt like, and Jongin had to concentrate on Tao’s lips moving against his own to keep from getting dragged along in Ardor’s fervor.

He pulled his hand up and stroked it down, spreading precome that had leaked from them both down their shafts to ease the slide. From there, it didn’t take long at all - Tao was already making the sexiest little noise with every thrust, something between a whimper and a groan, and sharing Ardor’s experience made Jongin feel like this was his first time all over again. In a bare minute, the beat of Jongin’s fist went from sensual and teasing, to fast and desperate, and when Tao gasped and started to pulse come, Jongin was not far behind.

Shuddering, Tao rolled onto his back. Jongin flopped forward half on top of him, doing his best to avoid the mess between them, holding his soiled hand up out of the way. Inside his mind, Ardor was pushing, demanding more; Jongin ignored it.

“Oh, Ancestors, between you and Sehun I am going to explode,” Tao muttered.

Jongin blinked at him. “What about Sehun?”

Tao’s bare chest heaved with his exhale. A drop of come was sliding down the rivulets in his abs and down his side; Jongin wiped it away with a finger before it could stain the sheets. “He sought me out last night,” Tao admitted. “Wanted to fight. Or to fuck, I’m not sure which. Anyway, he was having a bad night.” He dropped his head to the side, meeting Jongin’s eyes. “He kissed me. Creators, that man can kiss.”

A jolt of at least six different emotions shot through Jongin’s brain, so many so quickly that he wasn’t even sure what emotions they were. He finally just settled on surprise. “Sehun? Sehun kissed you?”

“I know, that was my reaction too.” Tao studied his face. “Are you jealous? Should I have pushed him away?”

“No, I - okay, yes, I’m jealous, but only because you got to kiss him first.” Jongin pouted, and Tao smiled at him, looking fond. “Was he alright? No offense meant, but it must have been bad for him to seek _you_ out.”

Tao sat up, grimaced at the mess drying on his stomach, and scooted out of bed. “I don’t think you’re wrong,” he said wryly. “I think he came to me specifically because I’m not tied to the Gallows. I might actually be the only person he knows who _isn’t._ ” Waddling over to the basin with his smalls around his knees, Tao started wiping himself off. Jongin covered a giggle with one hand, and Tao shot a playful glare over his shoulder, and tossed a wet rag at him.

Catching it, Jongin began to clean himself off as well. “I wish Sehun would sneak out in the middle of the night to kiss me,” he said wistfully.

Tao was watching him in the mirror. “Well, I certainly think his kissing me does not preclude his wanting to kiss you,” he observed, pulling his pants back up. “Have you two ever… I don’t know. Talked about it?”

“About what?”

“About the mutual wanting to jump each other, moron.” Reaching for a bottle of brandy, Tao tipped a little onto a rag and took out his jewelry to clean it. “You’re both pining for each other like the leads in an Orlesian opera, but have you ever actually _said_ that to each other? Because you probably should do that.”

Dropping his gaze, Jongin pulled his own pants back on, and waited for the wavering in his chest to quiet. “Sehun is complicated,” he said finally. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… You’re much easier.” Tao laughed, and Jongin got up off the bed and came up behind him. “Besides… you accept Ardor in a way that Sehun doesn’t. I don’t know if he’ll ever really see me as whole again, not while Ardor is with me.”

He wrapped his arms around Tao’s waist and dropped his chin on Tao’s shoulder, and Tao put one hand over his, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I wouldn’t underestimate how much he cares about you,” Tao said, “but it’s your decision. Just warn me if we’re going to end what’s between us, I’ll need to prepare myself.”

Jongin opened his mouth to say _never, of course not,_ but Tao suddenly went stiff in his arms, his gaze flying over to the door. “The wards?” Jongin asked, his heart suddenly pounding.

Tao nodded, and untangled himself from Jongin’s grip. “Stay here,” he said, “just in case.” He tossed on a shirt, grabbed his knives, and went up through the trapdoor to the roof.

Jongin quickly finished washing up and got dressed, pointedly ignoring Ardor, who was still stuck back on how _good_ that had felt and desperately wanting more. Images flashed in his mind, ghostly sensations skittering across his body, as Ardor dragged him into a fantasy of smooth, hot skin, soft lips and sharp teeth, of being surrounded, being _taken._

The trapdoor opened. “Hey, Jongin, c’mere.”

Stop that, Jongin thought firmly, and shoved Ardor back into his mind as best he could. He grabbed his staff and climbed up the ladder, letting Tao help him lever himself out. The door sealed behind him, warded and invisible.

Tao leaned close. “He says Sehun sent him,” he said quietly. “I was expecting someone, but I wanted you to look and see first.” He put his hand on Jongin’s shoulder, shrouding him in shadow.

Surprised, Jongin carefully looked over the edge of the roof, and then pulled back. “Ah! Yeah, that’s Baekhyun. What’s he doing here?”

“Apparently,” Tao said, “he resigned from the Templars.” That was a shock - Jongin looked back over the edge again, and noticed that Baekhyun was in civilian clothes and carried no weapons. “You trust him?”

Baekhyun had resigned? Why? Where was Yixing? They were normally inseparable, did they break up? “I suppose? More than most Templars, anyway.” Tao gave him a look, and Jongin clarified, “He never took vows, so he’s not on lyrium or anything, and he’s unarmed. I think it’s probably safe.”

Tao nodded. “Let’s go greet him, then.”

Down on the street, Baekhyun looked startled to see Jongin, then, maybe, a little relieved. “Sehun told me to go stand in this particular alley until, and I quote, ‘a living shadow appears.’ I didn’t think it would be quite so literal,” he said, glancing at Tao, who was sticking to the shadows in the lee of the building. He looked back to Jongin. “It’s good to see you. And I guess… it’s good to know Sehun has been in touch with you. He was really torn up when you left.”

Baekhyun was acting way, way too subdued, and Jongin could tell something wasn’t right. He was _never_ this somber. “You’ve left the Templars?” he asked. “Why? What happened?”

He didn’t get an answer immediately. Dropping his eyes, Baekhyun took a deep breath, and then another, and glanced again over at Tao. “There was a… plan. It went wrong. Meredith needed a scapegoat.” He heaved another breath. “She picked Yixing.”

Cold poured down Jongin’s spine. “What?”

“She... She made him Tranquil.” Baekhyun almost couldn’t say it.

No.

 _No,_ Ardor whispered.

“No, oh no,” Jongin said, blinking hard against the tears welling up in his eyes. “Not Yixing, oh, _Maker._ ”

Baekhyun was already crying, furiously wiping his face. Jongin reached for him instinctively. They’d never been cuddling friends, or even really friends at all, but Jongin couldn’t imagine the pain Baekhyun was in, and he couldn’t refuse him the comfort.

For his part, Baekhyun took it, burying his face in Jongin’s shoulder so that they couldn’t see him weep. Jongin held him and cried right along with him, trying to keep it quiet.

All of Yixing’s personality, his pride in his culture, his magical talent, his _love,_ taken away all at once… It was a fate worse than death. The absolute worst thing that could be done to a mage.

Inwardly, Jongin screamed at the injustice, and Ardor raged right along with him, furious that anyone would _dare_ to inflict such spiritual disfigurement on another living being. The addition of Ardor’s perspective, its visceral knowledge of just what it meant to be permanently cut off from the Fade, only made Jongin more furious, more aggrieved.

After a moment, Jongin felt a hand on his shoulder that didn’t belong to Baekhyun, and forced his head up. Tao, shadows shed, was watching them with worried eyes. Jongin shook his head, because he didn’t have words, not right now. What was there to say?

They stood there for a long while.

Eventually, Baekhyun pulled himself together, glancing warily at Tao, clearing his throat. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Anyway, I’m out of that hellhole now. I won’t go back to them, I won’t be a part of it.” He scrubbed at his face. “I tried to get Sehun to come with me, but he’s a stubborn bastard sometimes.”

“He’s staying because he wants to try to protect the mages who are left,” Tao said, to Jongin’s great surprise. “What? Don’t look at me like that, I told you he came to talk last night. He was trying to decide whether or not to leave. In the end, he decided he was needed.”

 _He has chosen a purpose, then,_ Ardor said. _I approve. It is a noble cause._

It was, and Jongin’s heart ached. “If he can stop that from happening to even one mage, it’s worth it,” he whispered. He looked to Baekhyun. “What will you do now?”

Baekhyun shrugged unhappily. “I don’t have family anymore,” he said. “My brother was killed in the Qunari uprising. I’d planned to stay with the Templars for the rest of my life, so when he passed I sold our family home and everything in it. I’ve lived in Kirkwall my whole life, but… Not as an adult. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Tao said. “Let’s go get breakfast, shall we?”

The market was just starting to wake up, and the weather was overcast, but warm. Sorrow and anger hung like a cloud over both Baekhyun and Jongin, but they did their best to enjoy the morning anyway. They took their time as they walked, Jongin introducing Baekhyun and Tao to each other more fully, and talked a little about Baekhyun’s options.

When the sun was all the way up, they headed up the stairs to Hightown. Charade was exactly where she usually was, perusing the Chanter’s board for jobs. They caught her attention, pulled her into an alley and out of the general view of the populace, and introduced Baekhyun.

Charade eyed him. “Templar-trained, huh? Can you do the…” She made a gesture with her hands, and a sound like an explosion.

Baekhyun cracked a smile. “No, smites are fueled by lyrium,” he said. “But I’m trained to break spells, and fight demons. Most of the Templar disciplines don’t actually require lyrium, it just helps a whole lot.” He cocked his head. “And I’m good with a sword.”

“Hmm. If you need work, I’m happy to provide it. Got a big job coming up, I could use the muscle.” She looked over at Tao. “And the more, the better. I’m going after the Followers of She.”

Jongin didn’t know what that was, but Tao seemed to. “You checked them out, then?”

“Yep. Surprise, surprise, it’s a cult. Demon-worshipping.” Baekhyun sucked in a breath, and even Ardor perked up in interest. “No one will go near them, and the city guard isn’t equipped for demons, they’ll get slaughtered. Normally I’d put this in front of Hawke, but he’s… dealing with other things.” She made a face.

“What breed of demon?” Baekhyun asked, suddenly all business. “How many cultists? Where are they based, what’s the layout?”

Charade grinned. “I like how you think, Ser Former Knight.” She leaned back against the wall. “Desire demon, fully manifested. She’s completely enthralled at least two dozen people, maybe more, and a lot of them are already corrupted or possessed. I saw some shades hanging around her, too.” Crossing her arms, she raised an eyebrow. “Not a problem that I can take on by myself, or even with one strapping young former Templar. I need firepower. A lot of it.”

“This should be brought to the Order,” Baekhyun said, sounding confused. “It’s exactly the kind of danger we - I mean. _They_ are best equipped to fight.”

Scoffing, Charade said, “You think I haven’t already tried? Meredith is refusing to even investigate, despite the leads I practically dropped in her lap. She’s too occupied with holding her own little domain to do her duty.”

“Sehun would help,” Tao said, and Jongin looked to him in surprise. “If we asked him to. Having a fully avowed Templar, even just one, could give you an advantage.”

That was true. “I will help too,” Jongin said. His insides were jittering, but he squared his shoulders.

 _That might not be wise,_ Ardor murmured in his mind. _Such an extreme situation could force us to meld more fully, to go deeper into corruption._

Charade patted his shoulder. “I appreciate it, but that’s really not the best idea. Mages are so susceptible to possession, I don’t want to accidentally hand her a weapon.”

“No, Jongin can handle it,” Tao said. “I’ll watch his back.” Jongin looked at him, surprised that he would vouch for Jongin, and even more surprised that he was volunteering to come along.

Clearly, Charade was thinking the same thing, if her expression was any indication. “If you say so,” she said. “With two Templars, two rogues, and a mage, we might actually have a good shot at taking them down.” 

_You are sure? I won’t hold back if you get into trouble, and that could end badly._

They could be careful. They would be okay. Hadn’t Ardor been pushing all along for Jongin to do more, to fight back, to find a purpose?

Pleasure and pride floated across his thoughts. _You have grown, little mage. Yes, we will be careful. Let’s help._

Jongin nodded. “I’ll have to stay back from the demon,” he said. “But I don’t need to get close to do damage. I’m coming with you.” 

Charade grinned at him. “Great. Get in touch with your Templar friend and let me know when we can move. In the meantime,” she said, slapping Baekhyun’s shoulder companionably, “let’s get this man a sword.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

When Sehun had offered his sword if it was ever needed, he didn’t really expect the request to come only two days later. But it was there waiting for him when he got back from receiving allotments, sitting innocuously on his pillow, sealed with black wax and written in such obscure prose that it was nearly encoded.

Tao was _so_ dramatic, honestly.

The gist of it basically came down to _we’re doing something dangerous the night after next and we could use your help,_ so two nights later, Sehun convinced Moira to switch shifts with him, and as the sun was going down, he donned his armor, shouldered his shield, and took the ferry across to Lowtown. The message hadn’t said where to meet them - probably just in case it was intercepted - so Sehun went to the alley.

He was right, it seemed, because not only were Tao and Jongin waiting there, so was Baekhyun, and a woman Sehun hadn’t yet met. Tao spotted him first, and tapped Jongin’s shoulder to get his attention. When Jongin turned, his expression lit up, and the warm pulse of the locket against Sehun’s chest sped.

Sehun’s heartbeat picked up as well, as if to match Jongin’s.

“You came,” Jongin said, breaking away from the group to come meet Sehun at the mouth of the alley.

“I did,” Sehun agreed, unable to keep from returning Jongin’s brilliant smile. “No idea what’s going on, but I said I would come if you needed me, so… here I am.” Over Jongin’s head, he nodded to Tao, and raised his sword briefly to Baekhyun. To the woman, he bowed a bit deeper. “Messere.”

“No titles needed, I’m nobody,” she said breezily. “Name’s Charade. I appreciate your help, Ser Knight. We intend to kill a demon tonight.”

Surprised by this, Sehun immediately looked to Jongin for his reaction. He seemed calm, or at least mostly calm, so Sehun assumed she wasn’t talking about Ardor. “Then I am glad to assist,” he said.

“Told you,” Tao said, even as Jongin’s smile got somehow more brilliant, proud and pleased. Sehun cleared his throat and tried not to flush. Jongin’s smile made him feel like a hero - even though he hadn’t done a single thing yet. “Well, there are some people still out on the streets, and considering the state of things it likely wouldn’t be wise for our Templar to be seen in the company of apostates or defected recruits.” It was a good point, if frustrating, and Sehun nodded, agreeing. “Charade, you want to go with him, and explain the situation on the way? We’ll meet you there.”

“You just don’t want to have to try to explain it yourself,” Charade said, and Tao grinned, unrepentant. “Sure, we’ll take the long way round. See you there, boys.” She looped her arm in the crook of Sehun’s elbow and turned him back towards the street.

The sun was already down, stars beginning to appear; they strolled through streets that were quickly emptying. A pair of city guards on their evening sweep peered at them curiously, but then seemed to recognize Charade, and let them pass without question, which Sehun found to be curious. He’d assumed Charade was a criminal simply because there were so many in the city, but if the city guard knew her on sight and _didn’t_ stop to question her, perhaps not.

“The cult is holed up in a condemned alleyway on the south side,” she was saying, keeping her volume low and her expression pleasant. “There’s only one entrance and they’ve blocked it off. Baekhyun insists that Templars do best with kick-in-the-door tactics, so that’s the plan - you two make a big ol’ ruckus that draws their attention. Tao will sneak Jongin and I in behind you, hopefully getting us to high ground if it’s possible.” She pursed her lips. “I _had_ hoped that we might be able to find a way up to the roofs of the buildings and get to them that way, but according to my friends, the alley is built right into the cliffside, there’s no way over top. So, we sneak.”

Sehun narrowed his eyes at her consideringly. “And your… _friends._ You trust their information?”

She flashed him a smile that should have had fangs. “They’ve always come through for me before.” They turned a corner, to a darker, poorer part of town. “According to them, the alley is accessed by a walled-in staircase. There’s a right-angle turn before you get out into the alley itself, so that’s your choke point.” 

It was a start. He’d hammer out the details with Baekhyun. “How many are we talking about?”

“Dozens, probably. Some are fanatics, true believers. Some are mind-controlled. There may not be any way to tell the two apart at first, but once Jongin has a good vantage point he’s going to try to break the compulsion. If he can manage it, hopefully the dominated ones will either run or turn to our side.” She glanced at him. “The Desire demon that leads them probably won’t engage at first.”

“They don’t like to fight unless they have no choice,” Sehun agreed. “It will probably try to mind-control its way out of the situation.”

Charade patted his shoulder, her fingers ringing hollowly against silverite. “Exactly that. Jongin, Tao and I will be vulnerable to demonic possession and enthrallment, so we’ll be keeping our distance, concentrating on the followers. The demon is all yours.”

Rolling out his shoulders, Sehun nodded. “Understood.”

She looked him up and down. “You’re confident. You ever take on a manifested Desire demon before?”

“Not alone, but yes. Abominations and unintentional summonings are an unfortunate fact of life at the Gallows.” He would be a little more nervous about going into the situation without any other fully oathed Templars as support, but Baekhyun was a better swordsman than many oathed Templars and they’d worked together often enough that they were comfortable in a fight.

That, and Sehun had taken his second lyrium dose this morning, giving it time to settle into his veins. He was a little more accustomed to the higher dosage now, the song settling into an ignorable hum in the back of his mind, but both the physical strength and the metaphysical power pulsing through his veins was real enough. He knew it would make him cocky, make him think he could take on more than was wise, but controlling that impulse was just a matter of self-discipline.

He would be fine. And he was going to ensure everyone else was fine, too.

Jongin, Baekhyun and Tao had evidently taken a faster route, because as the walls around them turned crumbling and signs admonished them to turn back, they came upon the other three, huddled into the lee of a decrepit building.

“All set?” Tao asked, coming out to meet them. Charade made an a-okay gesture and turned to Baekhyun to ask something.

Tao went to Sehun, holding out a bottle of potion. “Here,” he said. “Just in case.”

“Thanks.” Pocketing the potion, Sehun commented, “When you said you did work for the Friends of Red Jenny, I didn’t realize you meant you worked directly _for_ Kirkwall’s Red Jenny.”

Surprised, Tao glanced at Charade, and then back to Sehun. “She _told_ you?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

“No, I guessed. You just confirmed it.” Tao made a face, and Sehun grinned at him. “I won’t snitch. I’m just surprised. You don’t strike me as the vigilante type.”

“I don’t do it because it’s _noble,_ ” Tao muttered, offended. “I do it because it pays well, and because Charade is always good for the coin. Too many jobs in this city end up unpaid.”

Sehun made a thoughtful noise. “And are you being paid for this job?” he asked.

Tao scowled at him. Sehun laughed, and went to go confirm his plan of action with Baekhyun.

Jongin caught him just before they left for the final part of the trip. “Sehun, I - ” Sehun turned, questioning, and Jongin immediately turned red. The locket against Sehun’s chest was burning. “Be careful, please. This is more dangerous for you than anyone.”

“Uh, excuse me?” Baekhyun said.

“For both of you, I mean,” Jongin quickly corrected. “Just… don’t get hurt.”

Sehun wanted to kiss him. It wasn’t the first time, but the urge was particularly strong tonight. He settled instead on a solemn nod and a promise. “I’ll try my best. You try to stay out of the way, okay?”

“Oh, that is absolutely the plan,” Jongin assured him. “I’ll be as far away as I can get, and still be able to help. Don’t worry about me.”

“I always worry about you,” Sehun murmured. Jongin blushed, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes so hard that Sehun was briefly concerned he might hurt himself. “Be safe.”

Jongin leaned up and kissed his cheek, very brief, and then smiled and stepped back. Frozen, Sehun could only watch him go, no longer able to tell the difference between his own heart pounding and the beat of the locket against his chest.

Baekhyun jostled his shoulder. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go make some noise.”

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Sehun drew his sword.

They started down the decrepit back alley, Sehun and Baekhyun in front and the others behind. As they approached the crumbling staircase, Sehun could hear voices, footsteps, armor clanking. He looked back over his shoulder to warn the others to hide, but Tao was already on it, taking Jongin and Charade’s hands and pulling them directly into the shadows.

The staircase was wide enough for them to stand two abreast. Sehun took the wall on the outside, and Baekhyun the inside, and they charged.

They caught the guards on the stairs completely by surprise, and both were down before they could get in a swing. Not before they could yell the alarm, though, and Sehun leaned out around the side of the staircase just briefly, to get a look at the alley. It clearly used to be an inhabited borough, a handful of boarded-up homes around a small, cramped neighborhood square. There were already a dozen or so people milling about, and they all turned towards the staircase in alarm; Sehun saw a couple of doors opening and pulled back behind the wall. “Here they come,” he said. “Tao, _move!_ ”

He held his shield up at an angle, creating a passage between him and the wall that was somewhat protected as he brought his sword up to block the first swing his direction. Bodies brushed past him, felt more than seen. Sehun shoved the attacker in front of him hard enough to bowl right through the four more coming up the stairs, and moved two steps down. “Clear,” he grunted.

“Fantastic,” Baekhyun said, and stepped to the outside as Sehun moved towards the inside and dropped into a crouch. Baekhyun, who had always preferred enormous two-handed swords over Sehun’s sword-and-board style, swung right over his head in a wide arc, sending blood spraying against the walls.

Quarters were tight in the stairwell, which was both a hinderance and an advantage. Though his blood was up and his instincts were screaming at him to charge, Sehun stayed low, letting the cultists come to him, letting his shield take most of the onslaught and using his sword only to fend off whomever tried to get past. Behind him, Baekhyun made use his higher position and the longer reach of his sword, able to concentrate on doing damage from his position of relative safety behind Sehun’s shield. It was a tactic they’d employed in the past, in the narrow staircases of the Gallows, and it served them in good stead here.

Then, Sehun heard an unholy, inhuman roar, guttural and resonating. He dropped the last attacker before him and looked around the corner.

Most of the humans had already run, cowering in corners or shutting themselves into the condemned houses. It meant Jongin must have managed to break the compulsion on them, and that was the best news Sehun had gotten in a while.

Instead, the little town square was filled with monsters - twisted, two-meter-tall abominations that must have once been mages, now consumed and destroyed from the inside out.

And that wasn’t even the worst part. “Shades,” he warned Baekhyun, and heard a grunt of acknowledgement. “We need to get in there!” Shades were lesser spirits of the Fade, or sometimes the souls of the dead, that had been summoned into the mortal realm by a demon or a mage. Driven mad by the anguish of being forcibly pulled through the Veil, they would attack anything living, without discrimination.

They also didn’t rely on sight to find prey, which meant Tao, Jongin and Charade were in immediate danger.

Sehun stepped over the gore at the bottom of the stairs and started in towards the neighborhood center, yelling and banging his sword on his shield to get the demons’ attention. Baekhyun was quickly beside him, spreading out just enough that they weren’t in danger of hitting each other.

The abominations were closer, but the shades were faster, gliding unnervingly along the torn-up cobblestones like floating snakes made of darkness. A wave of fear and revulsion swept through Sehun, far too strong to be natural. In the corner of his eye, Sehun saw Baekhyun falter, a step taken back that should have been forwards.

“Oh no you don’t,” he muttered, gritting his teeth. The shades were close enough now that Sehun could feel them tugging on his mind, sapping his physical strength and his mental defenses, but this was not his first fight with such creatures. Planting himself firmly behind his shield to ward off the physical, he closed his eyes very briefly, felt for the effect in his mind, and blocked it, forcing the shades’ power back. A tangible shockwave rolled out from him, halting the shades’ advance for just a moment. 

Baekhyun shook himself off, and the abominations overtook the shades again, three of them, charging forward with awful, guttural cries that might have once been language. They clashed, two against three, and then everything was blood and screaming and claws aimed at Sehun’s face.

Abominations were _strong,_ physically and magically, and Sehun had somehow managed to draw two of them, so it was all he could do to defend himself, let alone get in a hit. Then, an arrow embedded in the shoulder of one, drawing its attention just long enough for Sehun to run it through, and the other was suddenly engulfed in lightning, screaming like an eagle being torn apart by hounds as it went down. 

Sehun spotted a flash of a twanging bowstring - Charade had managed to get herself into a doorway, a slightly sheltered spot from which she was sniping at the targets on the field. Unfortunately Sehun didn’t have the time to look for where Jongin had ended up, let alone check on Baekhyun, because as the abominations dropped, a full three shades took their place, surrounding Sehun.

Darkness closed in, shadowy forms blocking out the torchlight and shadowy hands twice the size of a human’s grasping at him. Claws sliced down the side of his face, and more claws grabbed at his upper arms. Sehun was lifted into the air, unable to move his arms to raise his weapons, silverite armor crumpling under the grip and crushing into his biceps, his shoulders.

He would not scream. He would _not_ panic. With every bit of discipline he had ever been taught, Sehun inhaled, drew up as much power as he could gather in one breath, and shouted it right out of his body.

This smite didn’t roll, it _exploded,_ throwing everything in Sehun’s vicinity violently back and ripping him out of the shades’ grasp. He hit the ground and rolled, crying out as his crushed armor dug sharply into his arms, like blades.

And then, Sehun saw her. All the way at the back of the square, standing in a doorway, greyish purple skin and a feminine body that was too absolutely perfect to be real, purple flames in place of hair between long horns like a ram. Soulless, solid black eyes met his, and the Desire demon smiled, beautiful and unholy. Long fingers capped with pointed, clawlike nails beckoned to him, and something primally deep in Sehun responded, pulling him up to his feet. His pain forgotten, Sehun took a step forward.

Someone yelled his name. He couldn’t tell who, but it broke Sehun’s reverie just enough, and the pain from his crushed armor did the rest. Averting his eyes from the demon, praying that he was far enough away that she would require the eye contact to capture his mind, Sehun hurriedly stripped off his ruined pauldrons and let them drop. Both of his arms felt like one giant bruise, and there was blood dripping into his eye now from the slash across his face, but the shades were re-grouping so he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

He slaughtered one before it could fully recover from the blast, and the second was already full of arrows. Baekhyun had somehow gotten separated from him, fighting his own battles on the other side of the square, so Sehun took on the last shade alone, gritting his teeth against the pain and the weakening effect to wade into the fray.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow shimmer into a figure clad in black, going still as it came into existence. Tao had tried to sneak up on the demon, and failed. Daggers dropped from numb hands, and Tao’s expression went curiously blank as the demon trailed fingers up his arm, murmuring something into his ear.

Completely forgetting about the shade, Sehun swore under his breath and sprinted across the square. The demon saw him coming, though, and pulled Tao in front of her, caressing the side of his neck.

Tao was obviously completely dominated, reduced to a puppet. A distant part of Sehun’s mind informed him that the demon must be very desperate to resort to a tactic so unsubtle and draining, but the rest of his mind was too utterly furious to really make much of that. The only reason he didn’t just immediately run her through was because she was using Tao as a shield.

“Hello, handsome,” she purred, a voice that would have been seductive if it wasn’t for the otherworldly echo. “Come to play with me?”

“Not in the slightest,” Sehun snapped. He sheathed his sword, yanked off his gauntlet, pressed his bare palm to Tao’s forehead and _ripped_ through the magic that was holding him, shredding the spell with his will alone.

Inelegant, but effective. Tao gasped and yanked himself away, stumbling weakly against the wall.

Before Sehun could help him or re-draw his sword, the demon was on him, clawed hands grabbing his bare wrist and yanking him forward. She pressed her mouth to his, less like a kiss and more like a leech.

Sehun screamed into her burning skin as the lyrium in his veins crawled right out of his mouth and into hers, pure power draining out of him. His blood was boiling, his skin smoking like it was being charred. She moaned softly, humming, and the sound scraped at the insides of his skull.

He couldn’t move. His body was frozen, no longer able to even scream, as she squeezed him out like a wet rag, sapping everything he was.

Out of nowhere, lightning struck. The demon shrieked, and sparks nipped against Sehun’s lips, his chest, his hands, somehow not leaping from her body to his, but she let him go.

All his strength gone, Sehun collapsed to the flagstones.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Sehun was _heavy._

Tao should have guessed that, honestly - he was a tall guy, and though lean, he was solid. Plus, of course, the full plate armor. And Tao was still trying to shake off the fog from the demon’s compulsion, still trying to regain his footing, when he dragged Sehun’s limp form back into a nearby doorway and frantically checked for a pulse - fast and faint, but there.

It took everything he had left just to pull both of them into the shadows, hiding them away. They were both useless now, out of the fight.

Not that there was much fight left. Jongin’s scream of fury when he saw the demon attacking Sehun would haunt Tao’s dreams, along with the terrible smell of burning flesh. Jongin had somehow, in his blind rage, called down lightning on _every foe on the field,_ all at once. Any cultist who had not already fled was killed instantly, leaving only the Desire demon and a couple of shades behind.

Jongin was striding towards them now with glowing eyes and all humanity gone from his face, knocking shades out of his way one after another. The demon was recovering from the lightning blast, shaking herself off, and Jongin looked hell-bent upon ripping her apart with his bare hands, but he was all the way across the square and the demon was already turning, looking to see where her prey had gone. The lightning had been no more than a momentary inconvenience to her, and to Tao’s horror, her otherworldly eyes landed right on him, seeing through his childish illusion like it wasn’t there.

Smiling, she took a step towards them. She reached out, and Tao felt her oily presence brushing his mind again -

A furious shout. The demon turned, surprised at the interruption, and lifted a hand to defend herself.

Charging straight up the stairs, Baekhyun shrugged off the demon’s rushed, last-ditch attempt to ensnare him, and cleaved her right in two with a single, furious stroke. With a shriek, the demon evaporated into smoke.

Still halfway across the square, Jongin stopped, snarled wordlessly, and turned to mop up the last shades.

Tao collapsed back against the wall, the last of his anxious tension draining from him. The demon was gone, nothing left but a few greasy-looking ashes on the cobblestones. It was over, or near enough to over. They’d survived. Barely.

With shaking limbs, Tao pulled the potion he’d given Sehun earlier from Sehun’s own belt-pouch and carefully tipped it down Sehun’s throat, a little at a time so as not to drown him in it. His own potions had already been used up, because the shades had _also_ seen right through his shadow illusion and nearly killed him before Sehun had gotten their attention.

Sehun had saved his life twice in less than ten minutes; it was only right that Tao at least attempt to return the favor.

As he carefully nursed the potion down Sehun’s throat, the cut over his eye closed up, and the nasty contusions visible through his torn sleeves faded. Sehun stirred, groaning, and Tao backed off, letting him blink awake.

Dazed eyes tried to focus on his. “T-Tao? What - ” Sehun shuddered violently, his back arching. “Aaah!”

“Sehun, Sehun, it’s okay,” Tao said, numb. Why was Sehun trembling like that? “Here,” he said, “drink the rest of this.”

He ended up having to hold both the potion and Sehun’s head, because Sehun was shaking too much to do it himself. Moreover, it didn’t seem to help. Sehun collapsed back to the cobblestones, his face screwed up in pain.

Tao looked up as Jongin dropped to his knees next to Sehun. “He’s not hurt,” Tao said helplessly. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I do.” It was Ardor’s voice, not Jongin’s, and it made Tao startle. “He has been drained. There’s no more lyrium in him.”

It took Tao a moment to remember why that was bad. “He’s going into withdrawal?”

Jongin took Sehun’s hand, and Sehun struggled to meet his eyes. “He is cold,” Ardor observed, “and his blood no longer sings.” Baekhyun and Charade were approaching now as well, bloodstained. Charade was limping, the leg of her trousers bloody.

“Ardor,” Tao murmured. “We need Jongin back now. Let him go, please.” He glanced at the two approaching. “Before they find out.”

Ardor stared at him for a moment, and then closed Jongin’s eyes. When they opened again, they were back to brown. “Tao, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let her get to you,” Jongin said immediately. “Either of you. I hesitated, I’m sorry!”

“Shh, it’s alright,” Tao said, even as Sehun turned towards Jongin and weakly squeezed his hand.

Baekhyun dropped to one knee next to them, and Charade, wincing, leaned back against the wall. “Is he hurt?” Baekhyun asked urgently.

“Not externally,” Jongin said. “Withdrawal. She drained him dry.”

“Maker’s _balls._ ” Baekhyun put a hand on Sehun’s shoulder. “Do you have your second dose?”

Weakly, Sehun shook his head. “I took… both of them.”

“And the next allotments aren’t for five more days. Shit.” Sitting back on his heels, Baekhyun pursed his lips. “Unless one of you has immediate access to lyrium, we’re going to have to go get him some. He can’t come down that hard and then go five days without, it’ll kill him!”

“The Chantry wouldn’t give him another dose?” Charade asked.

Sehun was so pale, he looked sheetlike in the moonlight. Tao put a hand on his cheek, knowing full well Sehun should not be this cold, this clammy. He exchanged a worried glance with Jongin.

“It wouldn’t be up to the Chantry, it would be up to Meredith,” Baekhyun said bitterly. “And she wouldn’t give it to him until he explained to her why he needs it, which I would like to avoid for several reasons.”

“Bitch,” Jongin muttered. “Can we get a dose another way?”

“I can, yeah. I know another way into the Gallows. I’m not exactly welcome there anymore, but I won’t get caught.”

Gritting his teeth, Sehun huffed. “Cocky.”

Baekhyun grinned at him, but it was strained. “I’ll bring the dose back to you by midnight,” he promised. “Just hang in there until then.”

Sehun nodded. “Sure. No -” he grunted in pain - “problem.”

“You want backup?” Charade asked.

“You’re hurt.”

“I have a stash nearby, I’ll grab a potion and be fine,” she said. “You killed the demon, so I owe you one. And I always take care of my friends.” She winked, and then winced, shifting her weight off her bad leg. “Come on, we should move.”

Accepting that, Baekhyun stood. “You shouldn’t stay here, just in case,” he said. “More than half of the cultists fled when Jongin broke the compulsion. Most of them were dominated but there could be some true believers in there, and they might come back.”

“We’ll take him to my place,” Tao decided. “Meet us there.”

So Baekhyun and Charade left, and Jongin and Tao got Sehun up and onto his feet between them, and headed back out to the street.

The going was slow. Sehun was unnaturally weak, so weak he could barely bear the weight of his own armor, and they had to hold most of his weight between them. Tao did his best to pull them into the shadows, but they were going slow and clumsy, and he was exhausted already from the fight, so they weren’t so much hidden in the shadows as just sort of… blurry. It was too conspicuous, but it masked Sehun’s identity and their situation, so it would have to do.

They were silent, unwilling to draw attention to themselves, no sound between them but labored breathing, muffled footsteps and Sehun’s occasional grunt of pain. It left Tao with nothing to focus on but holding Sehun up, and his guilt.

Sehun was suffering. _Dying._ And it was completely, entirely, one hundred percent Tao’s fault. Tao had suggested Sehun be asked to come fight, knowing he would never refuse. Tao had gone against the plan and tried to take the demon out on his own, and it had spectacularly backfired. And Sehun had broken formation and run directly into danger, to save Tao.

On top of all of that, Tao could see that Jongin was holding back his own guilt and panic. He’d already said that he blamed himself for not attacking the demon before Tao did, despite the fact that he’d been warned by everyone involved, _including_ Ardor, to stay clear. Now he was fighting with Ardor again, Tao could see him trying to stifle his facial expressions.

Jongin should never have felt that he had no choice but to let Ardor take him over. Not for Tao, not for anyone. They’d succeeded in killing the demon, but the rest of it was a spectacular failure, and Tao should have prevented it.

Getting Sehun up the stairs was somehow an even worse ordeal than getting him across the city. He was shuddering violently, forcing Tao and Jongin to essentially carry him, and he was clearly in agony. Tao did his best not to jostle him, but there was only so much he could do to prevent it. Eventually, they got him inside, and Jongin took Sehun to the bed while Tao locked the doors and activated the wards.

As always, he felt mildly better once he was safe inside, but only mildly. He quickly lit his lantern, the sole source of light in the room casting familiarly deep shadows against the walls, and then went to get some water. He brought it to the bed, where Jongin was taking Sehun’s armor off him and propping him up with pillows. Sehun was tugging at his shirt, mumbling about the ripped sleeves making him itch, so Jongin helped him to pull the shirt off, tossing it aside.

The locket was laying against Sehun’s sweat-drenched chest, glowing faintly. Was it enchanted? Jongin reached out hesitantly, curiously, his fingers hovering over the locket, but then he pulled back and took the water Tao offered him. He held it to Sehun’s lips, helping him drink.

Sehun only spilled a little, but he also only got through about half before he spasmed, forcing Jongin to pull back. “Shit,” he breathed, sounding terrifyingly weak. “Maker, it _hurts._ ” One of his hands fisted against his own thigh. “This is - ahh! - this is _so_ much worse than normal.”

“It’s not a normal withdrawal,” Jongin said softly. He reached up and gently detangled the tie from Sehun’s sweaty, messy hair, combing it out with his fingers. “The lyrium didn’t wear off naturally, it was ripped out of you. That has to make it worse, right? Like you’re getting hit with a week of withdrawal all at once.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Sehun tilted his head back, tendons in his neck straining and chest heaving as he gasped. “Maybe that means it’ll - ” He stopped, winced, pounded his own fist against his thigh. “- be over faster?”

“That isn’t going to matter, because Baekhyun is going to be back soon with more lyrium.” Tao sat next to Sehun’s knee and took his hand, prying his clenched fingers open to stop him from hurting himself further. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Um.” Sehun squeezed Tao’s hand. His grip should have been much stronger. “Pressure on my skin helps the pain, a little bit anyway. I need to keep drinking water, too, but it’s hard.” He shuddered again. “I’m so thirsty, but not for water.”

“Finish this, then,” Jongin said, and brought the water back up. While he was drinking, Tao kicked off his boots and climbed more fully onto the bed, wedging himself between the wall and Sehun’s side. It was a tight fit, but he managed.

“What are you - ”

“You said pressure helps, right?” Tao half-draped himself over Sehun’s body. “How’s this?”

Sehun’s shuddering was scarier when he could feel it through his whole body like this. “Yeah, it - it helps, a little.” He shifted around a bit, and then looked at Jongin with a question in his eyes.

Jongin hesitated, an internal argument clear on his face, but then yanked off his boots and climbed resolutely into the bed. He draped himself over the half of Sehun that Tao was not already occupying, winding his fingers through Sehun’s. “You’re so cold,” he whispered.

Sehun turned his head and rested it against Jongin’s, dim golden lantern-light flickering over his pained features as he winced. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ll try not to kick you if my legs spasm.”

Turning his face in towards Sehun’s shoulder, Jongin made a helpless noise, somewhere between laughter and sobbing. “Shit,” he whispered. “This is awful. Sehun, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Weakly, Sehun nudged him. “Shush. I knew the risks. The demon is gone and the cult has been stopped, that’s what matters.” He glanced around the room. “This is where you’ve been staying? It’s… small.”

He was trying to change the subject, obviously. Tao played along. “You can say what you really think,” he said, “I won’t be offended.”

Sehun made a face, but it was over-exaggerated, a weak attempt at humor. “It’s so cluttered. And there’s… only one bed.” He glanced at Tao.

“Which you are currently occupying, don’t forget. Anyway, neatness is overrated. It’s comfortable, and more importantly, it’s _safe._ ” He wriggled closer, trying to warm up Sehun’s clammy skin.

Jongin stroked a hand over Sehun’s hair. “It’s cramped,” he admitted. “But Tao has wards up. No one can get in without his permission. I can actually fall asleep here, and not worry that someone will barge in.”

Another spasm wracked Sehun’s body; both Jongin and Tao pressed closer against him to try and quiet it. “I wish the Gallows had been safe for you,” he murmured.

“I know, Sehun.” Jongin tried to smile reassuringly.

They were silent for a moment. Then, Sehun grunted, and shifted again, trying to get comfortable when it was clear he wasn’t going to be able. “Talk to me about something,” he requested. “Anything. I need to focus on something other than the hunger.” He glanced around, and his eyes lit on Tao. “Your… your earrings. Do those symbols mean anything?”

So Tao told him the story of the god of the moon and the goddess of night, as they held Sehun between them, tried to soothe him. Then, because the distraction did seem to help, he told the story of Isabela’s earrings, too, the gods of wind and sea. He was just finishing up and wondering what to tell next when he felt the wards jangle.

“I hope that’s Baekhyun,” he said, and untangled himself.

It was indeed Baekhyun, leaning against the wall of the alley below, catching his breath. “Went as fast as I could,” he said. He dug in his bag, and held out two phials, shielding their glow with his fingers.

“You got two?” Tao asked as he pocketed them.

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah. It’s the amount his body is used to, now, I don’t think one dose would be enough. But don’t give him both at once, that might mess him up. Give him the second one tomorrow morning.” He glanced up, but of course the door was hidden by the wards. “How is he?”

Tao shrugged helplessly. “How do you expect him to be?” he asked. “He’s in pain, and trying not to show it. I’ll get this up to him.” He turned, then hesitated, turning back. “You have somewhere to go?”

“Yeah, I’ve been renting a place close to the market. Good rate. Charade knows the landlord. Hey, Tao… thank you.” He saluted with his sword. “Please take care of him. He’s all I have left.”

“Of course,” Tao promised, wondering in the back of his mind when his solitary life had turned into something so… not solitary. “Stay safe, Baekhyun.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Sehun could hear the lyrium at the door before Tao even opened it. He was up and on his feet immediately, despite the shuddering pain in his limbs, despite Jongin trying to stop him with hands on his chest. “You have it,” Sehun rasped. “Give it here, I need it, hurry!”

“Sehun, you should take it slow - ” Jongin started, but Sehun had already tugged the phial from Tao’s hand, his hands shaking violently as he tried to uncap it. Tao leaped forward and caught the phial as it slipped from his fingers. “Wait, wait, Sehun. I’ve got you.” Jongin covered Sehun’s hands with his own. “Come on, we don’t want to spill it. Come sit down.”

He led Sehun to the bed, and Tao sat on Sehun’s other side, uncorking the vial. Blue light flared from the phial, bright enough to throw colored highlights against all of their faces in the dim, warm candlelight. The song crowded into Sehun’s mind, and Sehun groaned, reaching again.

Jongin pulled Sehun’s hands down, and Tao carefully lifted the phial to Sehun’s lips.

He only let Sehun take a sip, at first. The first sip went down like fire, scorching his throat and hitting his bloodstream hard enough to make him gasp. Sehun shuddered so violently that Tao had to pull back, putting an alarmed hand on Sehun’s shoulder in an instinctive attempt to steady him. “Fuck,” Sehun whispered. “It feels like the first time all over again.”

“That bad?” Tao asked.

Sehun nodded, and shuddered again, and a faint pulse of blue light radiated out from his solar plexus, outlining the network of veins under his skin for just a moment. The power raced through him, but it was so little, not nearly enough; it faded too quickly and left Sehun so _hungry._ “More, I need -”

Tao carefully tipped another sip down his throat.

The shudder this time was less violent, but the pulse of the lyrium spreading through his veins was brighter, stronger. This time, it settled into Sehun’s flesh, easing the hunger just a little. Sehun flexed and clenched his fingers, stretched his neck to make it pop, and then pulled his hands from Jongin’s grip and held one out. “Okay. I’m steadier now.”

Hesitantly, Tao handed him the phial. Sehun knocked it back in one shot.

The effect was delayed by several seconds, but when it hit, it hit like a sledgehammer. Sehun’s back arched, and he gasped, dropping the empty phial to the floor and digging his hands into Tao and Jongin’s thighs desperately as pure power raced through his blood. Lyrium pulsed through him, radiating from the center of his torso, outlining the veins under his skin and crawling up his neck, down his arms, and down his stomach to disappear into his waistband.

Jongin made a small, needy noise, causing Sehun to look down at him. He was staring at Sehun’s skin, the worry on his face replaced with undisguised lust, with a hunger that nearly matched Sehun’s own. As the lyrium pulsed blue again, Jongin traced out Sehun’s veins with his fingers, starting with Sehun’s hand and going up his forearm. He turned his body closer, curling his hand inside Sehun’s arm and stroking his thumb up the vein that rode over the crest of Sehun’s bicep. Sehun turned towards him, feeling something inside Jongin’s body call to him. 

Jongin looked up at him with parted lips and wide, glassy eyes, green light flashing in the depths.

“Jongin,” Tao asked urgently, “are you in control, or is Ardor?”

“It’s me,” Jongin said, his eyes not leaving Sehun’s face. His hand was still moving, sliding up Sehun’s shoulder. “But Ardor can _hear_ the lyrium song, and we - ” His fingers stroked across Sehun’s chest, and with the touch came a tug on something deep inside Sehun’s flesh that immediately and instinctively put Sehun on the offensive. His grip suddenly tightened like a vise on Tao’s thigh, sucking in a harsh breath that made his chest expand into Jongin’s hands. Biting his lip, Jongin cut off a whining moan before it could completely escape from the back of his throat.

Fuck, he was fucking beautiful. “You what, Jongin?” Sehun asked, and his voice was too low, gravelly. He cleared his throat. “What do you and _Ardor_ want?”

That was a dumb question with an obvious answer, and Jongin didn’t bother to respond to it. Instead, he leaned in, and latched on to Sehun’s neck with his mouth, right over the biggest vein.

The moment Jongin’s lips touched Sehun’s skin, light sparked, and power jolted between them. Jongin moaned, low and undeniably sexual, and Sehun’s cock jumped in his trousers, rapidly hardening, as Jongin’s tongue worked gently against his skin. A placebo, maybe, to try to pacify Ardor, to keep the spirit from sucking the lyrium out of Sehun’s body.

Another hand landed on Sehun’s chest, right over his heart. Jongin’s hands were both clutching Sehun’s shoulders now, so Sehun realized the hand belonged to Tao a moment before he opened his eyes to look. Tao’s eyes were wide and utterly black, reflecting the blue lyrium light back at him; Sehun watched him glance down at Sehun’s lap and then back up, licking his lips.

“Just because someone needs to say it,” Tao muttered as he leaned closer, “this is a really bad idea. Jongin, you have to keep Ardor in check, if it drains Sehun we’re going to be right back where we started.” His fingers curled against Sehun’s chest, kneading into the taut muscle, even as Sehun’s slid a little higher up his thigh. The touch made Tao’s cock jump - Sehun could feel the leather of his trousers stretching.

“We know,” Jongin murmured, his lips moving against Sehun’s jaw. “But he feels so _good,_ I can’t - ” He cut himself off with a noise of pure need, more animal than human, and pressed himself closer.

Fisting a hand in Jongin’s hair, Sehun pried him off his neck and tugged him up into a real kiss.

The moment their lips touched, Jongin was surging forward, and Sehun found himself with a lap full of extremely enthusiastic mage. Jongin whimpered and moaned and kissed like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and even with his nerves buzzing with fresh lyrium it was all Sehun could do to keep up with him. Everywhere they touched - lips, hands, chests, thighs - Sehun felt Ardor tugging on the lyrium in his blood, not draining it but sort of - playing with it. Playing _in_ it. It left him harder than stone, harder than he’d ever been in his life.

Gasping, Sehun broke away, and pressed his forehead to Jongin’s. “Fuck, I’ve wanted that for _so_ long,” he muttered.

“Me, too,” Jongin whispered. “You should have said something, but I know why you didn’t.” Stroking his hands over Sehun’s body, Jongin made another small noise, and looked up through his lashes. The strong planes of his bone structure and lush curves of his features were outlined in gold from the lantern and blue from Sehun’s own body; his beauty was unbelievable, almost unreal.

“Just so you know,” Tao said, half in amusement and half in exasperation, “I’m not letting the two of you kick me out of my own bed tonight.”

They both turned to look at him, and found him with lips swollen from biting and the heel of his hand pressing desperately into the bulge of his cock. “No, Tao, of course not,” Jongin assured him, reaching out to touch, maybe to pull him closer.

Sehun was no longer listening, because he suddenly realized not all of that buzzing lyrium song was inside his head. “You have another phial.”

Tao blinked, surprised.

“I can hear it. I wasn’t paying attention before, I didn’t realize - give it to me.”

“No,” Tao said firmly, and scooted back a bit. “Baekhyun said you shouldn’t take both tonight. The other one is for tomorrow.”

Sehun was already turning, moving, pushing Jongin off him. Tao scooted back a little more, but he didn’t get up, and that was a mistake because before he could think the better of it, Sehun had tackled Tao flat to the bed with his entire body.

Tao’s shirt was soft, thin black linen, his trousers supple and well-worn leather. Neither did anything to disguise the firm, lean fitness of the body under Sehun’s hands, or the way that Tao instantly and instinctively responded to Sehun’s weight on top of him with a gasp and a moan, clutching at Sehun’s sides in a way that made it clear he had no desire to push Sehun away.

Sehun purposely shifted around until his cock lined up with Tao’s, and rolled his hips forward, sending streaks of pleasure up his own spine. Throwing his head back, Tao eagerly arched into the touch, and Sehun couldn’t resist running his tongue up the column of Tao’s neck as he slipped his hand into Tao’s belt pouch.

Then Sehun pulled back, the phial in his hand.

Scrambling to push himself back up, Tao shook himself out of the haze of lust. “You little shit,” he snapped, and lurched for the phial. Sehun evaded him with no effort whatsoever, easily catching Tao’s clumsy lunge and forcing him back down to the mattress with one hand. He couldn’t miss how Tao’s breath caught, how his erection flexed needily at Sehun’s casual display of strength.

Jongin reached, but he wasn’t quick enough. Sehun popped the cap of the phial with his thumb and dumped it down his throat.

“Idiot,” Jongin scolded breathlessly, already moving to steady Sehun, to pull him down to sit on the bed. Tao rolled up onto his knees and got his hands on Sehun’s shoulders just as the first spasm hit.

Blue rolled out from the center of Sehun’s torso, forcing his entire body to tense and flooding the room with a flash of light. Sehun reached out blindly, his head thrown back against the wall, and both Jongin and Tao took his hands, holding him as the lyrium ripped through his system.

“Not… stupid,” he grunted, and heaved out a breath. “Fuck. I have to give the buzz time to settle before I go on duty tomorrow, or I’ll be useless.”

“I can’t imagine you’re ever actually _useless,_ ” Tao muttered. He brushed his fingers over the faintly glowing patch on the left side of Sehun’s chest. “Is that… is that your heart? _Creators._ ”

“Self-sacrificing _idiot,_ ” Jongin said again, but his tone had gone breathless, and he was getting that hunger in his eyes again. “Sometimes I think you _like_ to suffer -” He cut himself off, whimpering. “Oh, Maker, it’s _so_ much stronger now. Ardor wants to _eat_ you.”

Sehun attempted to smile, but it came out more like baring his teeth. “I would advise against trying it,” he warned.

“I have a better idea,” Tao said, as his hand drifted downwards. He delicately traced out the veins of Sehun’s lower stomach, standing out blue between tense muscle and hot skin. Sehun’s breath caught, his attention fully on Tao now, and Tao held his gaze as his hand slid further down, stroking over the bulge there, faint blue glow visible through several layers of cloth.

Moaning, Sehun’s eyes fluttered shut. “Oh, yes, that’s a _much_ better idea,” Jongin said, and slithered down Sehun’s body, taking his time and leaving slow, wet kisses all down his chest and abs that tugged on the lyrium under his skin and made him twitch. Sehun gasped, his eyes popping open again, throat going dry at the sight of Jongin kneeling between Sehun’s thighs.

Tao pressed himself close to Sehun’s side, his cock digging into Sehun’s hip. As Sehun wrapped an arm around Tao’s back and pulled him close, Tao undid the fastenings of Sehun’s trousers. In the dim lighting, and through only the plain linen of his smallclothes, Sehun’s cock was clearly outlined in glowing blue veins, and both Tao and Jongin stared at it, leaving Sehun biting his lip, torn between embarrassment and arousal.

“Does this happen to all Templars?” Tao asked, tracing out the shape with the tips of his fingers. His touch didn’t spark the way Jongin’s did, letting Sehun actually feel the simple pleasure of it without complication.

“Only when they’ve taken way too much lyrium,” Jongin mumbled, and it took Sehun a moment to understand, to realize why he would know that. His eyes widened, and his stomach flopped nauseously.

 _“Jongin.”_ Sehun’s hand cupped Jongin’s face. “Shit, I didn’t think - I shouldn’t have - Oh, Andraste, I’m _sorry._ We should stop.”

Turning his head, Jongin pressed a kiss to Sehun’s faintly glowing wrist. “We will do no such thing,” he said. “You aren’t him, you aren’t like any of them. I _want_ this.” He nuzzled against Sehun’s smallclothes, stroking Sehun’s clothed cock with his cheek. Choking, Sehun stiffened, his heartbeat picking up and his cock, slightly wilted with the reminder of what had happened to Jongin, surging back to life with glowing blood.

Tao pushed Sehun’s smalls down, taking his cock in hand and stroking it curiously. As Sehun groaned deep in his chest and arched into his touch, Tao flicked his thumb gently against the head. “You’re incredible,” Tao murmured, measuring Sehun’s length and girth against his hand. “This probably feels fantastic when you fuck someone.” The blue looked pretty between his fingers.

Sehun huffed, not quite a laugh. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’ve been celibate since I took my vows.”

Surprised, Tao blinked at him. “Seriously? Is that required?”

“No, not at all, I just never had a chance. They keep us busy, and unlike _some_ Templars I take my duties seriously.” He stroked a hand over Jongin’s hair. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it.”

Jongin smiled at him. Tao pushed Sehun’s cock forward, offering up like a gift, and Jongin wrapped plush lips around the head and sank down, enveloping Sehun in sparking heat.

“Oh, Andr - oh _fuck,_ ” Sehun stuttered. Tao chuckled, rubbing and squeezing at the base of Sehun’s cock as Jongin worked the head with his mouth, sending spasms and shudders through Sehun’s body like nothing he’d ever experienced before. “How did you - oh - _Jongin_ \- ”

Jongin’s laughter vibrated right through Sehun’s cock. “Not all of us took vows,” Jongin murmured against Sehun’s skin, before sliding down again until his lips touched Tao’s fingers. Sehun’s cock throbbed hard into Tao’s hand, blue glow pulsing to match.

“But you’re so - ” Sehun cut himself off with a moan, his eyes closing and his head lolling back.

Stroking Jongin’s stretched lips with his fingertips, Tao hummed, and shifted his hips restlessly against Sehun’s side. “You’re confusing pureness of body with pureness of heart,” he said. “A common mistake. Mmm, Jongin, whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”

Jongin winked at him, and did so, pushing Tao’s hand out of the way and replacing it with his own. The lantern light sank into the hollows of his cheeks as he bobbed up and down, his tongue stroking flat against the underside. Fuck, he was so fucking _good,_ Sehun was never going to be able to look at his full, pouting lips without blushing ever again.

Stroking his now-freed hand up Sehun’s shuddering stomach, Tao tucked himself closer, turning to look up at Sehun’s face. “Does it help with the lyrium?” he asked curiously.

“It definitely takes my mind off it,” Sehun breathed. His stomach flexed under Tao’s hand as he thrust up into Jongin’s mouth. Every part of his body was twisted up tight, a bowstring fully drawn. “Maker, _oh,_ I’m going to -”

Jongin pulled back with a gasp, letting go entirely and sitting up. The sudden lack of heat and pressure left him aching, and Sehun actually _whimpered,_ reaching for him, but Jongin pulled away.

Tao frowned. “You okay?”

“Fine, it’s fine, it’s just - Ardor. It’s being so loud.” He rubbed a hand over his head and smiled, obviously trying for reassuring but mostly failing. “Templar come tastes of lyrium, and I really don’t think giving Ardor that taste is wise.”

“Fuck.” Sehun took himself in hand, squeezing harshly to try to stem his needy throbbing. The rush of the lyrium was making it more difficult to restrain himself, loosening his self-control and winding up his desperation. “I didn’t even think of that. Now what?” 

Humming thoughtfully, Jongin looked between the two of them, and then grinned. He reached forward, grabbed Tao by the shirt collar, and yanked him forward. Sehun found himself with a lapful of Tao instead of a lapful of Jongin, and Tao looked just as caught off-guard by this turn of events as he was. “How’s this?” Jongin asked. 

“He’s not going to want _me_ with _you_ right there,” Tao was saying, but Sehun was already reaching forward, pulling Tao’s shirt out from his belt and running hot hands under the shirt, caressing smooth, comparatively cooler skin from Tao’s waist up to his chest. Tao shuddered at the temperature difference, looking down at Sehun wide-eyed, as Jongin settled himself behind him.

“You don’t seriously think that I don’t want you, do you?” Sehun asked, because if that was true then Tao was a hell of a lot less observant than he thought. Jongin smiled at Sehun over Tao’s shoulder, pleasure and gratitude that made Sehun glow in a more metaphorical way.

Tao flushed and spluttered. “I mean, of course you do, look at me. But you and Jongin - ” Sehun cut him off by pulling Tao’s shirt off over his head, careful not to get it caught on the earrings. Tao fell silent, automatically sitting up straighter, posing a little as his lean body was revealed, preening subtly like a proud bird. It was cute, really. Sehun tossed the shirt to the floor as Tao pulled Sehun into a kiss, immediately openmouthed and dirty. Sehun groaned and yanked him closer, forcing his back to arch.

Jongin hummed low, appreciative. Sehun opened his eyes and pulled back to see that Jongin was crowding up against Tao’s back, lips pressed to his shoulder, and Tao was rolling his ass back against Jongin’s crotch slowly.

Sehun pulled Tao’s silky, chest-length black hair out of its knot and ran his hands through it, fisting some of the strands and tugging lightly. “Maker, you two look good together,” he murmured. “I can’t even be jealous.” He kissed Tao again, controlling the angle of Tao’s head with the hand in his hair, and Tao followed his lead eagerly. Knowing full well how contrary Tao could be made his easy compliance all the more attractive.

“You should fuck him,” Jongin suggested, meeting Sehun’s eyes over Tao’s shoulder. “And he can fuck me.”

Tao moaned softly. “Bloody Andraste at the _stake,_ ” Sehun swore, making Tao snort and Jongin grin smugly. “You’re serious?” Sehun asked. “Have you two ever…”

“Not yet,” Tao murmured. He dragged his palm up the underside of Sehun’s still-hard, still-glowing cock, biting down on his lip when Sehun purposely flexed it into his hand. “We don’t have to, if you’d prefer something else.”

“No, that sounds…” Tao shifted his hips forward, trapping Sehun’s cock between his hand and the bulging front of his trousers, and Sehun stuttered mid-sentence, arching into the touch. “Nnnnng. Good. It sounds _very_ good.” He thrust, blazing hot friction only barely muted by the leather of Tao’s trousers, and Tao swallowed a gasp and pushed back. “You have oil, then?”

Opening his mouth to answer, Tao ended up just groaning instead, grinding harder against Sehun. Fuck, he felt so _good._

“I’ll get it,” Jongin murmured, and his weight lifted from the bed. Tao used the opportunity to pull back just enough to start pawing at Sehun’s trousers; Sehun tugged on his in return. By the time Jongin returned, a bottle of cooking oil in hand, both of them were naked and Sehun had spun Tao around and pulled him down into his lap.

His chest heaving, Tao sat himself fully onto Sehun’s cock, grinding down and arching his back, letting Sehun know in no uncertain terms that he wanted Sehun’s cock inside him, and he was determined to make it _good._ Sehun dropped a kiss to the side of his neck, groaning deep within his chest, and stroked hands up and down Tao’s torso as Jongin quickly undressed. He wasn’t posing the way Tao had, didn’t bother to angle his body just so, but his gracefully masculine form and perfectly all-over tanned skin were exactly as breathtaking as Sehun had always imagined.

Jongin caught him looking, smiled a little bashfully, and crawled up onto the bed. “Come here,” he said, and tugged at Tao’s shoulders until he tipped forward, manipulating Tao’s body until his ass was lifted, presented for Sehun’s enjoyment. Jongin handed the bottle over Tao’s back and winked.

Tao wrapped one arm around Jongin’s shoulders and let the other hand drift down between them, absently fondling Jongin’s cock as Sehun took the oil and kneaded into his ass with one hand. Sehun dripped some oil over Tao’s crack, and Tao took a steadying breath, dropping his head against Jongin’s neck.

Sehun knew his fingers were rough with callouses and hot with the lyrium, so he kept his touch gentle at first, circling Tao’s hole and massaging the oil into his skin. Tao was already whining under his breath, back arching and hips shifting, begging him for more, and Sehun’s clean hand squeezed restlessly at Tao’s thigh, almost clawing at it, trying to expel the buzzing energy of the lyrium through his left hand to avoid hurting Tao with his right as he worked his first finger inside.

Impatient, Tao pushed his hips back onto Sehun’s hand, urging him to hurry up. Sehun’s other hand dug harshly into his thigh, half in warning and half out of arousal, but he did add a second finger, sliding and pushing and scissoring. “Fuck,” he murmured, “you’re tight. Been a while?”

“A while,” Tao agreed. “Probably not as long as you. But I don’t usually…”

He stopped, exhaling slowly, and Sehun felt him purposely relax, letting his fingers in deeper.

“Don’t usually trust someone like this?” Jongin asked softly.

Tao huffed, but didn’t deny it.

“Don’t worry,” Sehun assured him, dropping a kiss Tao’s spine. “I remember what to do.”

“I have no doubts,” Tao murmured. Sehun’s fingers crooked forward, and Tao shuddered full-body, clinging tighter to Jongin for balance. Jongin carded fingers soothingly through Tao’s long hair, his eyes trained over Tao’s back, watching Sehun’s hand with avid interest.

Sehun wanted to draw this out, to give Tao the attention and care he deserved and probably never got, but the lyrium in his blood was _burning_ and his cock felt like it was going to explode if he didn’t stick it into something, so he only just barely managed to get up to three fingers before he was pulling out and tugging on Tao’s hips. Tao readjusted slightly, obligingly angling himself down as Sehun slicked himself up with a couple of quick strokes, and then Sehun held his cock against Tao’s ass and tugged to signal him.

Slowly, Tao sat back. Sehun was much thicker than three fingers, much harder, throbbing hot and needy. As Tao carefully worked himself down onto Sehun’s cock, bit by bit, breathing harshly through the stretch, Sehun moaned and tried unsuccessfully to stop himself from clawing at Tao’s skin.

Finally, his ass was settled completely into Sehun’s lap, and he sat up, leaning back into Sehun’s embrace. Sehun’s chest heaved against his back, and as he wrapped his arms tightly around Tao’s waist, Tao wiggled a little in his lap, moaning happily. Sehun held very, very still, breathing through the tight squeeze on his aching cock, trying not to choke, not to break, not to slam himself into Tao and fuck him until they both screamed.

Jongin, still eagerly watching them, met Sehun’s eyes over Tao’s shoulder and smirked. “How hard is it to not move?” he asked.

His blunt, knowing words made Sehun’s cock jerk heavily inside Tao, dragging groans out of both of them. “You don’t want to know,” Sehun growled under his breath. “Fuck, you feel _so_ good. I’m going to embarrass myself here.” It had been so long, and the lyrium had his blood already so hot; he really wasn’t sure how long he was going to last.

Tao swallowed heavily and squirmed a little, clearly trying to work his body more open, to relax into it. “Creators, I _want_ you to,” he breathed. “You feel like you’re already about to come.”

Plucking the bottle from where it was resting forgotten against Tao’s knee, Jongin cocked an eyebrow at them. “You know you probably can, right? With that much lyrium in him, I would be entirely unsurprised if Sehun could come twice or even three times without softening.”

Shocked, Tao looked back over his shoulder at Sehun, who was scowling. “I hate that you know that,” he said. “But you might be right. I’ve never tested it with another person, but…” He could do it alone, so chances that he could with Tao were pretty high.

Experimentally, Tao rolled his hips, and Sehun’s grip on him hardened as his cock pressed against all different parts of Tao’s insides. Shit, that was - Tao _really_ knew what he was doing. “Well,” Tao said, “maybe we should take the edge off while Jongin prepares himself, hmm?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jongin was already pulling pillows over, propping himself up. He planted both feet on either side of Tao’s knees, his own knees bent, displaying himself to them with a shocking degree of shamelessness. Jongin spilled oil into his hand, and Sehun immediately started moaning like he was being paid for it, his hips involuntarily starting to rock and his eyes glued to Jongin’s fingers over Tao’s shoulder.

Tao reached back, wrapped his hand around the back of Sehun’s neck for leverage, and started to ride, pushing himself up and down to meet Sehun’s increasingly more powerful thrusts. Jongin watched them with his lower lip clenched between his teeth and his dark eyes dilated until they looked as black as Tao’s, clever, tanned fingers working himself open with simple familiarity.

“You’ve done this before,” Tao guessed cheekily, the words coming out in pants in between thrusts.

Jongin huffed a laugh. “A few times, yeah,” he said, with just as much cheek, and, _fuck,_ that conjured up the image of Jongin alone in his dorm in the Gallows, moaning and fucking himself with his fingers, biting down on the knuckles of his free hand to keep himself quiet - 

Sehun’s cock was throbbing so hard, Tao must have been able to feel it, because he looked back over his shoulder with a mix of amusement and awe on his features. He readjusted, making sure Sehun had a clear view over his shoulder as Jongin’s other hand joined in, stroking lazily over his cock. Jongin arched, head tipping back, little sparks of green at his fingertips. Was Ardor in there with him, using Jongin’s hands against him, or was Jongin using the spirit’s energy to tease himself? Sehun wasn’t sure whether the notion was unbearably sexy or just plain frightening, but his hips were speeding anyway, overriding the rhythm Tao had set and yanking him down onto his cock harder and harder. Tao was whimpering again, sensation overwhelming his ability to pose or perform, and that alone made Sehun want to fuck him even harder, just to see him lose control.

It didn’t last much longer. Gasping against Tao’s back, Sehun swelled, stilled, and came. Tao dug his hands into Sehun’s neck and shoulders for stability, closing his eyes and groaning appreciatively.

A long moment later, Sehun’s hands unclenched, the last pulses of his orgasm trickling off. Tao exhaled, opening his eyes and relaxing back into Sehun’s body. He hummed, pleased. “That was _nice,_ ” he murmured.

Pressing his lips to Tao’s shoulder, Sehun stroked slightly-less-glowing hands around Tao’s stomach and palmed his cock, making him whimper and arch. “It definitely took the edge off,” Sehun agreed. “Thank you, Tao, you’re…” He trailed off, not sure what words could encompass how _good_ that was. Tao looked back over his shoulder, cheeks flushed and expression pleased.

“Amazing?” Tao suggested. “Fantastically sexy? A dream to bed?”

Sehun squeezed him warningly. “Whatever I was going to say, now it’s _a pain in my ass,_ current positioning to the contrary.”

Tao wiggled a little, teasing, and Sehun swallowed his gasp at the new sparks of sensation. “Mmm. No pain now, Ser Knight, I assure you. I’m ready for more whenever you are.”

Pausing, Sehun regarded him. He was serious? He wanted more, already? “...See to Jongin, first,” he said softly.

“Gladly.” With a wicked smile, Tao tipped forward, purposely keeping himself pushed back into Sehun’s lap so they would remain coupled. The motion jostled Sehun against Tao’s insides, making them both gasp. As Tao tugged Jongin forward, he ‘accidentally’ swiveled his hips back, and Sehun’s only slightly softened cock surged back fully hard, dragging a moaning growl from behind clenched teeth as Sehun’s hands convulsed into Tao’s hips.

There was no way to get around having to uncouple when Tao dropped into Jongin’s embrace, though, and Tao couldn’t hold back his whimper when Sehun’s cock popped free. Sehun’s come dripped down his thighs, making Sehun’s throat go dry and a weird, possessive jolt shoot through his gut. He wrapped a hand around himself, pushing all those emotions back to be dealt with later.

Jongin was wrapping arms and thighs around Tao and pulling him close, reaching down with an oily hand to stroke Tao’s cock firmly. Tao shuddered full-body. “Ready?” Tao asked. Jongin nodded, simple trust leaving his expression beautifully open, and Sehun shoved all the unfamiliar emotions that _that_ conjured up away as well. Later, he could deal with it later, when Tao wasn’t pushing forward in a long, smooth stroke, completely seating himself in Jongin’s heat.

Gasping, Jongin’s eyes flashed green. Tao froze, wide-eyed, and Sehun had the wild thought that Tao was fucking Ardor as much as Jongin. But as quick as it had come, it was gone, and Jongin was shakily exhaling and pulling Tao closer. “Move,” he whispered. “Just a little.”

Tao obliged him, rocking in small motions, clenching his hands into the bed linens and taking short gasping breaths in between thrusts, fucking _beautiful._ They found a rhythm, slower and more rolling than the rhythm Tao and Sehun had, and before long Jongin’s blunt fingernails were clawing into Tao’s back, tiny sparks of lightning dancing over his skin.

“Okay?” Tao asked, and Jongin sighed happily and pulled him closer. Tao seemed to take that as an affirmative, because he pushed forward until he could go no more, and then further, forcing Jongin’s hips up and pressing his knees against his chest, tilting his own body to present his still-stretched ass in the air. “Sehun, come on,” he urged.

“Fuck,” Sehun breathed, the first sound he’d made since he’d slid out of Tao’s body. He wasted no time crawling forward, blanketing Tao’s back with his weight, and as Tao sighed in pleasure and tilted his hips back to welcome Sehun into him, Jongin looked up and over Tao’s shoulder with parted lips and hooded eyes, a wet dream of an expression.

Sehun’s thrust into Tao’s body went much more smoothly this time, and Tao jerked and groaned, caught between the two of them in pressure that must have felt suffocating. It took a moment for Sehun to get settled, to get his knees under him enough for leverage and to find the right place to put his hands.

Then, Sehun started to thrust. Well aware that he was the one setting the pace here, he started in with long, slow, _powerful_ strokes that purposely forced Tao into Jongin’s body, using Tao’s cock like an extension of his own, fucking them both. Jongin’s previously low, sultry moans turned breathy and high-pitched almost immediately, and Tao couldn’t moan at all, stricken entirely silent but for his harsh breathing. Overcome, he tipped forward, pressing his face against the inside of Jongin’s knee and hanging on as Sehun’s beat sped, his thrusts grew sharper and stronger. 

Sehun panted against the back of Tao’s neck, pushing at Tao’s hips with one hand to encourage him to move counterpoint, and Tao did his best to comply, adding what strength he could muster to the force Sehun was already exerting.

Through his gasping, his wide-eyed squirming, Jongin managed to cup Tao’s face in one hand, to squeeze Sehun’s tensed arm with the other. “Ardor wants to feel - ” he started, and broke off with a moan as Sehun bore down even more, pressing them into each other. “Can we try - will you let - ”

“Do it, go ahead, do anything,” Tao murmured, and Sehun, whose brain was firmly lodged in his cock at the moment and could barely even process words, just sort of nodded thoughtlessly. Jongin whimpered, his eyes and fingers flashing.

Then, quite suddenly, there was a… _presence._ Just for a moment, just a brush of consciousness, but Ardor reached out through Jongin and slipped briefly under Sehun’s skin, feeling what he felt. _Oh,_ Sehun heard inside his mind, along with a sense of wonder, of exhilaration.

And deep below that, a growing hunger.

For a brief, _brief_ second, Sehun was everywhere. He was himself, fucking into Tao with a lyrium-fueled, rock-hard erection; but he was also Tao, caught breathlessly between the tight pressure around his cock and the pounding friction from behind, and he was Jongin, bearing the weight of two full-grown men and the madness of a spirit inside his mind that was teetering on the edge of toppling into mindless desire.

As quickly as it began, it was gone, and Tao gasped, shuddering full-body, jerking and clenching reflexively, squeezing Sehun tight. Jongin mewled and arched into him, and Sehun’s cock throbbed in response, and then the pace was speeding between them, becoming rougher and harder and much less coordinated. Heels dug into Tao’s waist, and hands clawed into Sehun’s arms, and Sehun had never wanted _anything_ so badly as the orgasm he was chasing now.

“I want you to come first, Jongin,” Sehun said, half growling command and half breathy pleading. “What do you need?”

“Touch me, please, I - ” Jongin sounded so close, so nearly desperate already.

Sehun’s arms were the only thing keeping him from totally squishing the two of them under him, so Tao did what he could not, pulling up just enough to worm his hand between their bodies and wrap it around Jongin’s cock.

Jongin’s shudder rocked all the way through Tao and into Sehun. “Yes,” Sehun breathed, and picked up his pace even more, pounding them both into the mattress. The wet sound of sex had a syncopated rhythm, Sehun’s hips slapping into Tao’s and forcing Tao’s into Jongin’s, ba-dum, ba-dum, like a heartbeat. Tao seemed to no longer be capable of moving anything but his hand, jerking Jongin off in quick strokes, trying to match Sehun’s pace.

“Faster,” Jongin begged, and both Sehun and Tao immediately complied. “Harder, please, oh, Maker, _oh_ \- ” He arched, his pretty body drawing tight, making Tao’s rhythm stutter and Sehun snarl possessively, shifting his weight enough to clasp one of Jongin’s hands in his own, blue pulses and purple-green sparks.

Despite Sehun’s command, Tao came first, shaking and gasping and completely coming apart between them. It caught all three of them by surprise, and Sehun’s thrusting turned erratic and desperate as Jongin moaned and clutched at Tao, yanking him in as deep as he could go.

Tao collapsed onto Jongin’s chest, gasping desperately for air, groaning and whimpering as Sehun continued to fuck him harder and harder, as Jongin covered Tao’s hand with his own and pumped his own cock with it. Sehun pushed Jongin’s other hand into the mattress, squeezing with far too much strength, and Jongin finally came, crying out wildly and throwing his head back, messy and nasty and absolutely beautiful. Sehun followed shortly thereafter, yanking Tao’s hips back with an iron grip, slamming deep and staying there, his cock throbbing so heavily that he wouldn’t be surprised if he reset Tao’s pulse to a new beat.

Tao was just recovered enough to brace himself as Sehun’s weight relaxed, keeping them from crushing Jongin, who was still shuddering through aftershocks, jerking weak spurts of come across his stomach that didn’t seem to want to stop. They stayed like that for a moment, catching their breath, and then Sehun realized he was resting most of his weight on Tao’s very shaky limbs and forced himself to roll off them. Immediately, Tao collapsed to the side, landing half on Sehun’s chest.

Sehun pulled him close. The glow was almost gone from his limbs now, but his veins were still too prominent, outlining his body like the brushstrokes of a painting. Tao ran his fingertips over the pattern of veins on Sehun’s forearm, and Sehun dropped his head onto Tao’s hair and let him, too tired to do much else, or even think about the simple intimacy of it.

Jongin started to roll onto his stomach, seemed to realize he was covered in come, and stopped himself just in time. “That was incredible,” he mumbled. “I need to sleep for the next twenty years now.”

Chuckling, Sehun squeezed Jongin’s hand, still loosely clasped in his own. “I might actually be _able_ to sleep after that,” he said. “We should… clean up.”

Tao grunted. “I’m going,” he said, and did not move. Jongin didn’t, either.

After a moment, Sehun levered himself out of bed, and silently went to the washbasin to dampen some rags. He came back, and Tao groaned and made to get himself up, but Sehun pushed him back down to the bed. Too exhausted to argue, Tao let Sehun wipe the come from his thighs. “Has anyone ever told you you’re too good to be true?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Not to his face,” Jongin said sweetly. Sehun blushed, lyrium making his cheeks burn glowing blue, and both of them smiled dopily at him, like he was some kind of adorable baby bunny and _hadn’t_ just fucked them both through screaming orgasms.

Sehun moved on to cleaning Jongin, and Jongin spread his thighs and allowed the touch, watching Sehun with sleepy, fond eyes. His trust was humbling, inspiring; it made Sehun’s heart swell up with pride and love and - fuck, Tao was giving him that _look_ again, the look that said _when are you two just going to declare your love already,_ the look that said _that’s for them, that’s not for me._

As if Sehun could ever be to Jongin what Tao already was. There was something painfully endearing about how Tao kept shoving them together even though he clearly longed to be in the middle, something beautifully understanding about how Jongin had just now forced him to be in the middle anyway. They should really… discuss that. Like adults.

But not tonight. Sehun used the last of his energy to scootch to the back edge of the bed, making space for the three of them to lie down. It was a very tight fit - the bed was barely big enough for two, let alone three - but they spooned up and tangled legs together and made it work, and despite having just taken two doses of lyrium only a little while ago, Sehun managed to fall asleep, and for once, he did not dream.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin woke up warm, almost too warm, to the sound of low voices.

“I don’t want to get in the way of anything.”

“You’re _not_ getting -”

“I can’t give him what he deserves anyway, Tao. Not while I belong to the Order.”

Cracking one eye open, Jongin blearily looked up. “Are you talking about me like I’m not here?” he mumbled.

Sehun looked guilty, but Tao just snorted and tugged the blanket up over Jongin’s face again. “Go back to sleep, it’s too early to be awake.”

“Mmmph. Alright.” Jongin rolled over, shoving the blanket out of the way, and tucked himself against Sehun’s chest. Sehun was warm, much warmer than Tao behind him, but he wasn’t blazing hot the way he was last night.

 _The lyrium in his blood has cooled little,_ Ardor observed quietly. _It is incredible what the mortal body can become accustomed to._ Jongin’s hand lifted Sehun’s without his input, and through Jongin’s eyes, Ardor examined the veins in Sehun’s wrists, no longer visibly glowing but still too blue.

“I’m just saying,” Tao continued, “you have somewhere to go, if you want to leave. You have a place here with us.”

Sehun’s arm curled around Jongin’s back. “I don’t think that would work, Tao.”

Is the lyrium damaging his body? Jongin asked.

_Of course it is. But he is strong. It will be years, maybe decades, before the damage becomes apparent._

Jongin burrowed closer.

“Why? You don’t _know_ that it wouldn’t work. Or is it just that you’ve never seen a three-way relationship under the Chantry, and therefore you think it can’t be done?” Sehun didn’t answer, and Tao huffed at him. “Think about it, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Jongin mumbled. He opened one eye again and looked up at Sehun. “It wouldn’t be three-way, not so long as Ardor is with me. It would be four-way. Fantastic sex aside, would you be able to handle that?” Sehun pursed his lips unhappily, and Jongin closed his eye again. “That’s what I thought,” he murmured.

Sehun made a distressed noise. “It’s not that… Maker, I don’t know. I just can’t picture it. What if two of us fight?”

“We deal with it like any other rational adults would,” Tao said, as if this was the most obvious thing. “Are you being obtuse just because this idea is new, or do you have actual reservations about this?” he asked. “Do you want us?”

Jongin rolled onto his back and looked up, waiting for the answer.

“I…” Sehun looked away. “Yes, but I don’t think - ” He paused, and they waited. “...I don’t know what I want,” he finished, sounding miserable. “I have a duty, and I can’t…”

Inside, Jongin’s heart clenched, but he didn’t show any outward reaction. Tao sighed. “I guess I can’t really fault you for being honest,” he said. “When do you have to get back?”

Sehun looked out the window. “There’s a ferry just after the morning bell. As long as I’m on that ferry, I’ll be on time for my shift. An hour or so, maybe?”

Tao nodded decisively and rolled off the bed. “You two should go out, before the market gets crowded. Grab breakfast. Catch up. Have you actually had any time alone since Jongin left the Gallows?”

Pushing himself up to sitting, Jongin shook his head. “We haven’t.”

“Then go on!”

After quickly freshening up and getting dressed, Tao all but kicked Jongin and Sehun out the door. 

By this time, Jongin was familiar enough with Lowtown that he could lead the way from Tao’s neighborhood down to the market. Sehun walked at his side, quiet and warm.

 _Tao wants you to confess to him,_ Ardor pointed out helpfully.

Jongin fought not to scowl outwardly. He _knew_ what Tao wanted, he just wasn’t sure it was a great idea. He led the way to his favorite pastry-seller silently, glancing at Sehun through his lashes.

Sehun huffed. “Alright, this is silly,” he said. “Look, Tao has said some things… I just. You know I like you a lot, right?”

I like you a lot. It was almost juvenile, almost cute. “I did gather that last night, yes,” Jongin murmured.

“No, I - Maker’s breath. I’m so shit at this.” Sehun stopped and turned towards Jongin, right in the middle of the only mostly-deserted street. “I love you. That’s what I’m failing to say. I think I probably have been in love with you for years, maybe since the day we met, I don’t know.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but it still made Jongin’s heart climb into his throat. He took Sehun’s hand, wishing he wasn’t armored so that he could feel Jongin stroking his thumb over the back.

Nervous amber eyes met his. “If things had been different,” Sehun said, “I would have confessed this years ago. Shit, Jongin, it’s been…” He bit his lip. “Say something?”

Ardor prodded him. It was unnecessary, and Jongin firmly told the spirit to sit down and shut up because this was _his_ issue to handle. “Me too,” he said. “Probably not since the day we met, but. A long time.” Sehun’s eyes widened, and Jongin flashed him a sad smile. “But the rules against Templars and mages being in relationships are there for good reason, right? And when I got older and realized what the others were doing, I thought it best not to take the risk. Even though I could tell you were attracted to me, I... tried to force myself to stop being in love with you.”

“Maker.” Sehun exhaled, halfway between a laugh and a sob. “How well did that work?”

“It went okay, for a time. I diverted my attentions to other mages, people I knew I could trust. Yixing was my first, did you know that?” Just saying Yixing’s name, just picturing his face, made Jongin’s heart crack and bleed.

Sehun froze, stricken. “No, I - oh, Jongin, I’m so _sorry_ -”

Jongin shook his head. “I was young, and it didn’t last very long, but…” He sighed, deep and heavy. “But this is exactly why the Senior Enchanters encourage us not to form personal attachments, especially here in Kirkwall. When you have an attachment, the Templars can use it against you, and they _will._ I couldn’t risk putting you in danger, and to be completely, painfully honest, I wasn’t sure it was worth putting _myself_ in danger, either.”

He started walking again. Sehun followed suit, not dropping Jongin’s hand. “I understand that,” Sehun said. “There was a time I would have argued with you, that of course no one would ever punish you for being in _love,_ but I know better now. It’s anything that makes a mage a target, isn’t it? No matter how harmless.” He sighed. “No wonder you latched on to Tao so quickly. Just being able to openly show affection must have been freeing.”

Jongin blinked at him. “I hope you don’t think I just leaped directly into Tao’s bed,” he said.

“Well, no, I…” Sehun glanced at him. “Okay, yes, that might be what I thought. I mean, I wouldn’t exactly _blame_ you, he’s awfully pretty. And I know first-hand how easy it is to fall for you, so I can’t blame _him_ either.”

That made Jongin flush, pleased. “I knew you were a closet romantic,” he muttered, and Sehun cleared his throat and tried to keep from smiling bashfully. They exchanged a long look, that said more than the words could.

Sehun dropped his gaze. “Jongin, I should… I need to tell you something.” Jongin cocked his head questioningly, and Sehun bit his lip. “I, um… I might have… tampered with your phylactery.”

Of all the things he could have said, Jongin was really not expecting that one. “What?”

“It was immediately after you left. I was really, uh, upset. It was dumb, but I knew I wanted to be the one who found you, and I’m not a hunter, they never send me on missions like that. So I borrowed it for just a few minutes in between when the Enchanters activated it and when it was delivered to the hunting party. I took a little blood from it.” He covered his chest with his hand. “It’s here, in my locket.”

 _So that’s why the locket is enchanted now,_ Ardor murmured. _It wasn’t magical in his memories._

Jongin stopped moving and stared at him, trying to decide how he felt about that. “So you can track me?” he asked. “You used _blood magic_ to track me?” It explained so much - namely, how Sehun always seemed to know where he was, always seemed able to find him. Jongin had kind of just assumed it was luck.

“It’s not very precise,” Sehun said immediately. “It’s not like a real phylactery, I can at most tell when you are within a few blocks of me. But yeah, that’s how I knew you were in the Gallows that night. It wasn’t much of a stretch to guess where you would be heading. I just… I thought you should know.”

It was sweet, Jongin thought, but also a little bit creepy. “Can you do anything else with it?”

Sehun blushed, surprisingly deep considering how far they’d already come with each other. “I can feel your heartbeat,” he mumbled.

Jongin blinked, feeling a flush of his own creeping up his cheeks. “...Really?”

“Yeah. It’s actually why I was able to accept that Ardor hadn’t completely taken you over yet,” he admitted. “Yixing told me that the spell would break if you became an abomination, so as long as I could feel your heartbeat, I knew you were still _you._ It helped me a lot in those first few weeks.”

That was _precious,_ and Jongin had to bite back a coo. But then, what Sehun had just said actually sank in. “Wait. Yixing knows about it?”

Confused, Sehun met his eyes. “Yes? He was the one who made it for me, and re-sealed your original phylactery.”

Alarm creeped under Jongin’s skin. “Sehun, Yixing is tranquil.”

“He wasn’t at the time, this was weeks ago.”

“No, I mean - He’s _tranquil._ He doesn’t have loyalty anymore, he doesn’t have any warm feelings for you or me or _anyone_ anymore, only logic. What if he says something?” He took Sehun by the wrist. “What if Karras or Meredith finds out you still have a way to track me, and _you hid it from them?_ ”

From the look on Sehun’s face, Jongin could tell that had not occurred to Sehun. “Andraste’s _tits,_ ” he swore. “You’re right, oh, Maker. He doesn’t have reason to keep _anyone’s_ secrets anymore.”

“You have to destroy it,” Jongin said. “You know where I live now, I won’t go anywhere without finding a way to let you know. But I won’t feel safe as long as that thing could be taken from you and used against me.”

Sehun looked pained, but he nodded. “I’m sorry, I should have realized - I’ll destroy it as soon as I get back,” he promised. “It’s kind of stuck under my armor at the moment.”

That made Jongin laugh, relieved. “Alright. I trust you.” They started walking towards the market again.

Jongin was just about to ask whether Sehun would prefer meat or pastry for breakfast when Sehun suddenly stopped walking, his gauntlet wrapping around Jongin’s wrist. “Jongin,” he said, quiet but sharp. “Get out of here.”

Surprised - and confused - Jongin didn’t immediately move. “What? Sehun -”

“Hide, Jongin, hurry!” Sehun started forward again, his body language attempting to project casual disregard, but Jongin could still see the tension. And that was when he heard it.

 _Lyrium,_ Ardor realized, and yes, he could hear the song, and it wasn’t coming from only Sehun - 

Jongin turned to run, and ended up stepping back instead, because there was silverite plate armor coming up behind him. Two Templars Jongin couldn’t identify because they were helmeted.

“See?” someone called. “I told you he’d lead us right to him.”

Jongin whipped around. Sehun was already battle-ready, sword and shield out and body planted firmly between Jongin and the four Templars approaching from the other end of the street. In the center was Ser Karras, sword in hand and a nasty smirk on his features, and next to him was Ser Agatha, stern and threatening.

Two lieutenants, four knights, in an increasingly crowded street with innocent civilians scrambling to get out of the way.

 _Let’s end this,_ Ardor whispered. _Let’s kill them all._

Jongin didn’t think, he didn’t pause, he didn’t hesitate. He raised his staff, reached for the power Ardor handed him, and shouted down lightning.

“Jongin, _no!_ ” Sehun screamed, but it was too late. The lighting crashed, the townsfolk screamed and scattered, and Jongin grit his teeth as the power burned through him.

When the smoke cleared, two of the knights were dead and two more were on the ground, but Karras and Agatha were untouched, shrugging the spell off as if it was nothing.

All that power, and it had done _nothing._

Fear unlike anything Jongin had felt before gripped him. If Ardor couldn’t even scratch Karras’s armor…

It was like he was twenty-one again, the first time Karras had come to his room. Jongin had never been able to stop Karras. Jongin never _would_ be able to stop Karras.

Raising weapons, Karras and Agatha charged.

“Run!” Sehun snapped, and raised his weapons against his own commanding officers, something Jongin never thought he would see.

_No, Jongin, he needs our help -_

Jongin turned and ran.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Never in a thousand years would Sehun have thought that he would owe Ser Agatha his life, but it was only her insistence that Sehun be brought back to the Gallows to face formal judgement that kept Karras from executing Sehun right there in the Lowtown market.

Not that he really thought being brought before Meredith was better, but at least he wasn’t dead yet. Inside he was seething, but outwardly Sehun forced himself not to struggle as he was dragged across the city and onto the ferry. He knew full well that Karras needed only the barest of excuses to justify killing him, so he didn’t make a scene as he was marched across the courtyard and up the stairs to Meredith’s office, doing his best to ignore the stares from the mages, from his fellow Knights.

Then, Karras asked Agatha to go get Meredith. _Ordered,_ more like, even though he didn’t actually have any authority over her. Agatha obviously didn’t like it, but she went, leaving Karras and Sehun alone.

Karras waited until Agatha’s footsteps had faded, before he picked Sehun up by his breastplate and threw him down onto Meredith’s desk.

Papers went flying. Sehun reflexively grabbed Karras’s arm for leverage, planning to kick his legs up and get them between himself and Karras, but before he could, Karras pinned him down with his body, armor screeching awfully against armor. Sehun’s armor wasn’t built to be forced backwards like that, and he gasped in pain and shock as he felt it start to bend.

“See, I knew there was something going on between you and that blood mage,” Karras said, blue eyes burning with triumph. _Blue_ eyes - hadn’t they been brown only a few weeks ago? “I could see it in your face that night after the vault. People think I’m dumb because I’m strong, but I’m not nearly as dumb as I look.”

He reached into his belt purse and pulled out a handkerchief, half-soaked in old, dried blood. Confused, Sehun looked from it back to Karras.

Karras’s grin was bordering on maniacal. “It’s what I used to clean your nose off my gauntlet,” he explained, and Sehun jolted with surprise when the implications sank in. “Something told me not to send it to laundry. Something told me it would come in handy.”

“You used blood magic to track me,” Sehun realized. “You forced a mage to risk demonic possession just to track me? Who?” Karras tucked the handkerchief away and didn’t answer, his evil smile widening. He was _enjoying_ this. “Whose soul did you risk, Karras?!”

But even as he was asking it, he realized he knew. It had to be Alain. Someone Karras had power over, someone he knew would keep quiet about it for fear of the repercussions. And that made Sehun’s blood boil, because he knew he _also_ had to keep quiet about it, for Alain’s sake. As the only remaining survivor from the mage resistance group, he would already be closely watched, one wrong step from being made Tranquil himself.

Karras knew it, too. That evil _bastard._

“You’re a fucking disgrace to the Order,” Sehun snapped, the urge to just fucking _kill_ the man nearly overwhelming him. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he had anything left to lose - was he a dead man either way? “You’re an abusive, power-hungry _prick_ and I hope a demon tears you limb from limb.”

“You gonna summon one to do your dirty work?” Karras asked. “Make your disgusting little maleficar _boytoy_ do what you don’t have the balls to do yourself?” Wordless, Sehun snarled, too angry to say anything more coherent than that. “No, that’s not how this goes. In two minutes, Meredith comes through that door, and when she finds out you’ve known where Jongin was this entire time, you’ll be _lucky_ to be executed.” He leaned close. “I hope she keeps you alive long enough to see us bring his body in.”

Sehun swung his elbow up and smashed Karras across the jaw.

It tore Karras open, edges of silverite plate catching on his skin and ripping a bloody line down his cheek, but the man barely flinched. He heaved, shoving Sehun over the desk and to crash into the desk chair. Sehun went down in a flurry of paper and ink, rolling inelegantly to the floor.

Winded, Sehun hurriedly pushed himself up onto all fours, trying to get his balance under him before Karras came around the desk and grabbed him again. He looked down, and his attention was caught by something bright orange - a letter, with a familiar seal.

Abruptly, Sehun finally remembered where he’d seen that seal before. It had been locked in Meredith’s jewelry box; he’d seen it when he’d borrowed the keys to the vault.

What was so important that Meredith kept it locked away?

Quickly, and on a wild whim, Sehun grabbed the letter and shoved it gracelessly into his boot. He only had barely enough time for that before Karras was hauling him back up onto his feet, just in time to see the door opening.

“What in the Maker’s name…” Meredith planted her feet and crossed her arms, glaring, as Cullen closed the door behind them. “What is the meaning of this?”

Karras dragged Sehun around the desk. “He’s trying to escape, Commander,” he said, though Sehun had done no such thing. “Agatha told you where we found him, didn’t she?” He forced Sehun to his knees in front of Meredith.

“She did. Knight, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Sehun glared. Nothing he could say would strengthen his case right now, and he knew it.

Cullen’s voice was softer, more reasonable, than Meredith’s. “Sehun, why were you seen peaceably conversing with Jongin when you know very well that he is a maleficar?”

The question was like a slap across the face. Sehun’s gaze snapped up to Cullen’s, but the man’s expression gave away nothing. “He’s not a maleficar!” Sehun protested. “He’s never done any blood magic, _ever!_ ”

“You know as well as I do that there is no way to prove that,” Cullen replied, sounding so rational that it made Sehun’s stomach turn. “We can only prove that a mage is guilty of blood magic, there is no way to know for sure that they are innocent of the same. And he overpowered an experienced Knight after coming directly out of a Fade-sleep. No normal apprentice could do that.”

Betrayed, Sehun’s jaw dropped. Cullen quickly came forward, taking Sehun’s chin in hand and examining his face, his eyes. His expression was warning, something there that was for Sehun’s eyes only, but Sehun wasn’t certain what it meant, what Cullen was trying to tell him.

“Of course he’d tell you the mage isn’t a maleficar,” Karras spat. “They’re _lovers._ He’s protecting a criminal.”

“I don’t think so,” Cullen said, before Sehun could defend himself. “I think he’s under thrall. We already suspected it was Jongin who broke into the phylactery vault those weeks ago, and Sehun was clearly under thrall then, as well.” He stood, turning to face Meredith and Karras. “Anyone who has fallen under a blood thrall once is even more susceptible to it again, isn’t that true? He may not even realize he’s enthralled.”

Karras’s face was pinched. Meredith looked thoughtful, narrowing her eyes at Sehun.

“I’m not under _thrall,_ ” Sehun said, “because _Jongin is not a blood mage._ ”

“Quiet, _mutt,_ ” Karras snapped. “Commander, Cullen is protecting his lapdog, you can’t seriously believe this.”

Cullen shook his head. “Ser Sehun is one of the staunchest, most loyal knights I know,” he said, calm and serious. “This isn’t at all like him. I suggest that we put him under watch and let the thrall fade. Our numbers are dwindling daily, and the situation here is getting worse and worse.” He met Meredith’s eyes. “Especially now, he is not a knight we can afford to lose.”

Thoughtfully, Meredith stepped forward. Cullen moved out of the way, and Meredith examined Sehun’s face, her blue eyes like chips of ice in her weathered face, almost glowing. Power pressed over him, raw magic of a different kind than what the mages used, scraping against his nerves as she inspected him. The touch of her skin on his own brought a screeching, awful sound, a lyrium-song that was too loud, too dissonant, so horrible that Sehun physically winced away from her, instinctively covering his ears though the sound was inside his mind. He was shaking by the time she let him go - what the _fuck_ was that?!

“He is bathed in corrupt magic,” Meredith decreed. “You may be right, Cullen. Put him in solitary under guard, the high cells. We don’t want any mages or recruits coming in contact with him, he may corrupt them by proximity alone.” She stepped back. “Perhaps when Jongin has been taken care of, he will be free of the corruption. Until then, isolate him.”

“That’s a mistake,” Karras said immediately. “He’s a danger to everyone here, he should just be killed.”

“Don’t _question_ me!” Meredith whirled on Karras, her eyes literally flashing, glowing. Karras flinched and shut up. “Cullen, see that it is done. Karras, with me. I will take your report as we walk.”

They left. Cullen hauled Sehun to his feet and out the door, keeping a tight grip on him as they headed for the stairs.

“You don’t seriously believe that I’m under thrall, do you?” Sehun asked quietly, trying to keep his voice from echoing down the stairwell.

Cullen didn’t look at him. “No,” he said, “I think you are in love, and therefore an idiot.”

Sehun huffed, deflating. “You said that to keep them from killing me, then,” he realized. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I don’t know if it will work.” They kept going up the stairs, past the floor where Sehun had been held a few weeks back. “Andraste’s _tits,_ Sehun, what were you thinking?”

“He needed my help,” Sehun said simply. “A demon worshipping cult was terrorizing Lowtown. Meredith wouldn’t address it, so they asked me to help them. Should I have refused, Cullen?”

Cullen stopped and regarded him, looking for the truth in his words. Obviously, he found it, because he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. That’s why there’s residual corrupted magic on you, isn’t it.”

“Probably. But the demon’s dead. It should have been the Order taking care of that threat, not a bunch of citizens.”

Sighing, Cullen started up the stairs again. “Meredith has her hands full trying to keep the Gallows from falling apart,” he said. 

“Why do you always defend her?” Sehun asked. “She’s gone insane, Cullen, she’s completely lost it.”

“She isn’t _insane,_ she’s just trying to hold a crumbling Circle together in any way she can,” Cullen shot back. “She wants to protect people, Sehun, I know you don’t believe me but I know her better than anyone else in this Circle. She is all that is standing between those mages and disaster. Every _minute,_ it gets worse.” Jaw clenching, he added, “Mettin was killed last night.”

Sehun’s eyes widened. “What?”

“He was found frozen solid in an alley on the south side of Lowtown. A mage’s work, and not one that particularly cared to be subtle about it. Meredith thinks it was meant to be a message. A threat.” He glanced at Sehun. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Numb, Sehun shook his head. “We were on the north side last night,” he said.

Cullen nodded. “I didn’t think it was Jongin’s work, he was never particularly good at ice spells. Orsino insists it must have been some otherwise unknown apostate, maybe someone from Tevinter, there have been a few recent reports of Tevinter mages in the city.” He glanced again to the side. “Meredith thinks it was one of our escaped Circle mages. There are enough of them now that the list of suspects is not small.”

“Shit,” Sehun muttered.

“It gets worse. Signs of blood magic were found in the enchanter’s library. Someone performed a ritual recently and didn’t clean up after themselves thoroughly enough. Add that to the fact that lyrium has been going missing from the vaults, and Meredith is seeing treachery in every shadow. And how can you blame her?”

Sehun’s stomach flopped, horrified and guilty, because he knew exactly who had performed that ritual, and why the lyrium was missing. He shut his mouth, and hid his reaction.

Cullen opened the door to the top floor of the Gallows, the tallest peak, right underneath where the signal fire burned to keep ships from running aground on the fortress in the night. There were two holding cells up here, and two guards who snapped to attention as Cullen entered.

These cells were nothing like the cell Sehun had been kept in previously. The walls were solid rock and reinforced with iron plates, the tiny window too small to climb through even if he did manage to rip the bars out. The door was solid, not open-barred, with an equally tiny window at eye level.

“Strip off your armor, Knight,” Cullen ordered quietly. Knowing that the other knights were watching, Sehun did as he was told. His sword and shield had already been taken from him by Karras, so it didn’t take long to remove the rest. “Ser Sehun is to remain in solitary, under guard, until such time as an officer orders otherwise,” Cullen told the two Templars who guarded the room. “He is suspected to be under a mage’s thrall, so be careful.”

The Templars saluted. Cullen guided Sehun into the cell that faced the city, and Sehun was grateful for the small blessing of a reasonably pleasant view, at least. “I’ll come back for you in a few days, when the thrall has faded,” Cullen said. “Please try to remain compliant in the meantime?”

Sehun saluted to him Ferelden-style. Cullen smiled, a smile that came nowhere close to his eyes, and shut the cell door, leaving Sehun alone.

Except for the guards, of course.

Sehun didn’t even bother to speak to them. He went immediately to the window, staring out through the square hole the size of his face, across the sea and towards the city. It was still so early - the sun was only just now completely up and some of the torchlights of the city itself were still lit.

He covered the locket around his neck with his hand, whispered the command word, and felt Jongin’s heartbeat against his chest. It was too fast - Jongin was afraid.

Probably afraid for him.

Swallowing heavily, Sehun ended the spell. It was only luck, and Cullen’s respect for his personal possessions, that had kept his locket from being taken away, from being found out. Now that Karras knew he was connected to Jongin, keeping it was an enormous risk.

But he wasn’t going anywhere for a couple of days, at least. Right?

He had nothing, now. The chances that he would be allowed to keep his commission were slim, no matter what Cullen said. He could still be expelled from the Order, or executed. And he had little chance of ever seeing Jongin, or even Tao, again.

In the face of that, what could it hurt, to hold on to this tiny bit of comfort for a day or two more?

Tucking the locket back into his shirt, Sehun guiltily prayed to the Maker he wasn’t making a mistake - but he just couldn’t bring himself to let his last connection to Jongin go.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It was one of the longest days of Jongin’s life.

Furious at himself for leaving Sehun behind, terrified that Karras was still lurking outside his door, and fearful of what might be happening to Sehun now, Jongin spent most of the day crying, panicking, or trying to stop himself from crying or panicking. Tao got the story out of him in bursts between sobbing fits, and then spent the morning and a chunk of the afternoon consoling Jongin and attempting to keep him calm, to distract him.

Ardor was no help whatsoever, yelling in Jongin’s mind that they needed to go after Sehun, to rescue him. Jongin knew that trying to get into the Gallows during the day was suicide, and did his best to ignore the spirit’s fervor, which only made him feel shittier, cringing and cowardly.

Eventually, Jongin cried himself into a fitful sleep, giving him a blessed moment of relief. When he awoke, his head was pounding, and the sun was low in the sky, slicing through the window in amber streaks.

He was alone. There was a note on the table, scrawled out hastily.

 

_We’re running low on both money and supplies, so I’m going to see if I can find some quick work. Stay here, where you’ll be safe. I’ll be back tonight. - Tao_

 

There was a little, clumsy sketch underneath, two dark-haired figures embracing with a floating heart over their head.

Jongin held back a sob. He didn’t deserve Tao.

_Stop that. You deserve to be loved._

Jongin sat on the floor cushion, wrapping his arms around his own shoulders. What was he going to do with himself? He hadn’t been left completely alone for weeks now - he and Tao had been all but joined at the hip. He should read, or clean the place up, or something. Something other than sit here on the floor being fucking useless.

For a long few minutes, Jongin scolded himself, telling himself to get up, do something useful. The more he ripped himself apart, the harder it felt to get up and do something, a vicious, paralyzing cycle.

Someone called his name.

For a brief, terrible, wonderful moment, Jongin thought it was Sehun’s voice. Then the call came again, and Jongin realized it didn’t sound like Sehun at all. Cautiously, he opened the door, and peered down.

Baekhyun. And with him, of all people, Yixing, his new brand standing out red and ugly against his tattoos.

It was surreal to see them there, standing next to one another as if nothing had happened. That was not a sight that belonged in Jongin’s new life, in this dirty alley in Lowtown. And the way that Baekhyun was keeping himself out of arm’s reach of Yixing, looking anywhere but at him, was heartbreaking.

“Baekhyun?” Jongin asked, confused.

“I found him wandering Lowtown,” Baekhyun replied, still carefully not looking at Yixing. “By himself. I couldn’t just - it’s _dangerous_ out there.”

“Jongin,” Yixing said, calm and emotionless, as if Baekhyun had not spoken. “I have brought you a message from Sehun.” He held up a folded letter.

Jongin’s heart leapt, but immediately, it plummeted again, replaced with guardedness. Was this a trap? The last time Jongin had seen Sehun, he was standing against Karras, very obviously aiding a wanted apostate. Was the letter really from Sehun at all, or was Karras attempting to use their relationship against them?

Well, Yixing was Tranquil now, right? He was capable of lying, but he would only do so if he had been given a compelling reason. It was worth asking. “How would you get a letter from Sehun?”

“I was assigned to bring him his food,” Yixing said promptly. “He asked me for a change of clothes, paper, and a pen; Knight-Captain Cullen gave me permission to take them to him. He must have known why Sehun wanted them; I took this as permission to grant Sehun’s request to bring the letter to you.”

Maker bless Cullen. His heart was in the right place, even if his sword wasn’t always. “Alright, but then why would you agree to carry the letter?” Jongin asked. “Baekhyun’s right, this city is too dangerous for you to be out here alone.”

“Sehun is the only Templar in the Gallows who still feels fondness for me,” Yixing answered. His simple, matter-of-fact, monotone words made Jongin shudder with the _wrongness_ of them. “All the rest hate me, fear me, or see me as a non-entity. It is in my best interests to cultivate Sehun’s regard, as there may come a time when I will have no choice but to rely upon him to protect me from others.”

Right. Of course. The only instinct a Tranquil had left to them was self-preservation. Helping Sehun was only logical.

 _This is the real abomination,_ Ardor said.

Jongin did not disagree. “Alright,” he said, “bring it up here. I can’t leave or I will get locked out, Tao’s not home.”

Yixing started up the stairs without hesitation, and Baekhyun hurried along behind him. “You don’t have a key?” he asked, curious. “Haven’t you been living here for weeks now?”

“There is no key to the wards,” Jongin explained. “They only unlock when Tao is standing right at the door. If I leave, I won’t be able to get back in.”

“That’s annoying,” Baekhyun said, but Jongin was no longer listening, because Yixing had handed him the letter, and their fingers had brushed, and something _rushed_ through Jongin’s body, something that felt a lot like Ardor.

Yixing stumbled like he’d been hit. Quick as ever, Baekhyun caught him before he toppled off the landing. “Whoa, hey, careful.”

Clutching at Baekhyun’s arms, Yixing raised his gaze up to meet Jongin’s, and Jongin sucked in a breath, punched in the gut by his expression. “What… what did you do, Jongin?” he asked, soft and - 

Horrified.

Jongin stared at him, shocked into unmoving silence. Yixing’s eyes were no longer glassy, the lines of his face no longer smooth; the red sunburst brand on his forehead stretched oddly as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Oh, Maker, Yixing, is it really - ” Jongin couldn’t finish the question, but he didn’t have to. It was scribbled all over Yixing’s face, a dozen emotions flashing across his expression in a few seconds of consternation.

Immediately, Jongin turned his attention inward.

Did you do this?!

 _Not on purpose,_ Ardor said, sounding as confused as Yixing looked and Jongin felt.

“Baekhyun?” Yixing was saying, turning around. “ _Baekhyun._ Oh, ir tel'him, ma vhenan - ” and he grabbed Baekhyun’s face and kissed him hard, like he was suffocating and Baekhyun was air. Shocked, Baekhyun didn’t respond immediately, but once he realized this was really happening, he hauled Yixing close and kissed back desperately, tears already leaking from his lashes.

“This is impossible,” Jongin whispered, mind reeling. “Tranquility isn’t reversible, you can’t just…”

_It’s my fault, I think. I am of the Fade as much as you are of the waking world, and he is drawing this emotion from me._

_It won’t last, Jongin._

Try! Keep him here, keep him as long as you can!

_Touch him, and I will try._

Jongin reached out and put his hand on Yixing’s shoulder, startling them out of the kiss. “I don’t understand,” Baekhyun said immediately, holding Yixing’s face in his hands and drinking in his expression. “Are you healed? Did Jongin somehow heal you?”

“No, I-I don’t think...” Yixing said, even as Jongin shook his head sadly. He didn’t need Ardor to tell him that - now that he was touching Yixing, he could _feel_ Yixing’s connection to the Fade stretching, breaking, despite Ardor clawing desperately to try and keep ahold of him. “It’s not complete, it’s already slipping away, Baekhyun, ir abelas, I’m so sorry, I should have listened to you. I did this to myself.”

Baekhyun pressed his forehead to Yixing’s, tears streaming down his cheeks even as his face twisted up in anger. “Don’t say that, don’t you _dare_ say that.” He choked on his inhale. “Is it - is it peaceful, at least? They say it’s peaceful.” He sounded like he wanted to hope, so badly.

Yixing squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s _nothing,_ ” he whispered. Jongin’s stomach flopped nauseously. “It’s nothing at all, it’s _wrong,_ it’s emptiness like I can’t even describe, it’s - lathbora viran. I can feel that something is missing when I look at you, but I can’t remember what it is, or why I need it. It’s just - _gone._ ”

There was nothing worse he could have said. Baekhyun burst immediately into angry tears, clutching at Yixing’s shoulders, oscillating between pulling him forward and pushing him away. Yixing was trying to hold him, to steady him, but his own hands were shaking so badly he could barely keep a grip on Baekhyun’s armor.

Baekhyun pressed trembling lips to the brand on Yixing’s forehead. “Don’t leave me again, Xing,” he whispered. “I can’t bear it.”

Swallowing hard, Yixing reached out and squeezed Jongin’s hand. “You gave me the chance to say goodbye,” he said. “Thank you, da’len.”

“Oh, Andraste,” Jongin whispered.

“I don’t have long,” Yixing said. “Baekhyun, I’m _scared._ I don’t want to die. Please, don’t let me go.” He gasped, shuddering, and Baekhyun clutched him. Through Ardor, Jongin felt as the last strands of Yixing’s connection started breaking, one after another.

Ardor! Hang on to him, please, Maker, _hold him!_

 _I’m trying!_ Ardor surged under Jongin’s skin, reaching out like a cat leaping towards a bird, but Yixing was already fluttering away.

Yixing’s shudders were stilling, his body going lax. “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Baekhyun sobbed, as the light finally faded from Yixing’s expression, leaving him blank once more. “Yixing. Yixing?”

Jongin let his hand drop. There was nothing left that he could do. He had failed.

Raising his eyes, Yixing said, “I am here. Do you need something?” His expression was blank again. Still tear-stained, but now, empty.

Baekhyun pulled back from Yixing like he’d been burned. “No,” he snapped. “You aren’t here. You aren’t anywhere, you’re just a _thing_ wearing his _face_ -” He choked on his own words, stuttering at the truth of them, and turned away. “Fuck, I can’t even fucking _look_ at you.”

“I understand,” Yixing said, in a tone that very much implied that he didn’t, not at all. “I will return to the Gallows now.”

Looking up sharply, Baekhyun’s expression writhed on his face, unable to settle into just one emotion, a riot of pain. “You don’t even care,” he said, incredulous. “You _can’t_ care. You - _fuck_ -” and he turned, and vomited right over the side of the railing, down into the alley.

Jongin reached for him instinctively, stroking a hand across his back, soothing him as he wiped his mouth and turned. Baekhyun buried his face in Jongin’s shoulder and screamed, muffled by his shirt, until he devolved into thick, gasping, nasty sobbing.

Numb, overwhelmed, Jongin stared over Baekhyun’s shoulder at Yixing, watching them with impassive patience. The horrifying irony that Yixing had once done for Jongin what Jongin was currently doing for Baekhyun, soothing him while he puked and holding him while he screamed, made Jongin feel like vomiting himself.

“I will go,” Yixing said again, looking to Jongin as if for permission.

“That might be best,” Jongin agreed, softly.

“No.” Baekhyun pulled away, stood up straight. “No, Yixing, wait. I’ll walk you to the ferry.” He wiped his face off furiously, obviously struggling to get his emotions back under control. “It’s too dangerous for you to go alone.”

A nod. “That would be beneficial.” And, after a short pause in which Yixing seemed to remember what politeness was, he added, “Thank you.”

Baekhyun exhaled heavily, steeling himself. The look on his face broke Jongin’s heart into pieces. “We’ll get going, then. Goodnight, Jongin.”

They left, Baekhyun walking side-by-side with Yixing but staring straight ahead.

Turning away from them, Jongin went back inside and let the door seal behind him. He wished Tao was there, or Sehun. He needed to talk this through with someone, he needed to _cry,_ he needed- 

Ugh.

Ardor wound through his consciousness, warming him, shoring up his will, like new plaster seeping between crumbling bricks. _I am here,_ it murmured, and Jongin was grateful for it. He tried to smile, to reassure Ardor that he would be okay, and felt back from the spirit the assurance that he did not have to pretend for Ardor’s sake. Ardor understood his heart better than he did.

Jongin wished he could give Ardor to Yixing. He had two personalities inside him now, and Yixing had none, how was that fair? But spirits couldn’t possess the Tranquil - that was, in fact, the entire point of Tranquility.

But that begged the question - how had Ardor done that?

_I wish I knew. I don’t think I could reach him again; I am tightly bound to you and he is very, very far away. That little piece that connected with me is broken now, shattered._

But another spirit…?

 _It would be quite a job to convince one to touch him,_ Ardor said sadly. _What has been done to him is repulsive, and few spirits care enough about mortals to even answer a summons, let alone be convinced to sully themselves with that. Is that not what you were just thinking yourself? That the entire reason your Chantry imposes Tranquility upon mages is to remove the possibility of a spirit possessing them?_

Ardor was right, and Jongin hated it.

_Even if you could somehow convince a spirit to touch him, I do not know if it would work a second time, or be any more permanent than what has happened here. He is gone, Jongin. What is left of him is not a person, not anymore._

The thought flayed Jongin open. He fell back against the door, breathing hard, trying his best not to succumb to tears. He’d already cried so much, today.

Scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes, Jongin realized Sehun’s letter was still clutched in his fingers. In an attempt to push the horror of what had just happened from his mind, Jongin popped the letter open. A second letter, crumpled, fell out of it; Jongin read the outer letter first.

 

_He followed me to find you. I wish I could say I saw it coming, but somehow, I didn’t, not at all. They suspect that I am under thrall, and I am to be watched, guarded, for the time being. No one suspects Yixing, though. He is nothing to them, nonexistent._

_Don’t worry about me. For now, I am safe, but I’ll be stuck here for a while. Even after, I don’t think it will be wise for us to meet again. It’s too much of a risk. It would be best if you just left the city._

_Please, be safe. Stay alive, and be happy, for me. Tao - take care of him. Please?_

_I love you, Jongin._

_~S_

_Postscript: I managed to grab this. Maybe someone you know could make use of it._

 

Reading that was a mistake, because now Jongin nearly couldn’t see for the tears in his eyes. It was too much to bear, after everything that had - it was _too much._

Feeling as if he had lost everything, all at once, Jongin dropped onto the cushions in the middle of the room and cried, again, with only Ardor inside his mind to comfort him.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The caches had nothing of use. Tao went all around the entire city and checked every single one, but what jobs were there were either way out of his league or not paying. Some of the jobs he might have considered taking with Jongin at his side, but they didn’t know how closely Sehun had been watched, whether anyone had followed Jongin back towards Tao’s. Besides, the poor man was still reeling over the emotional whiplash of what had happened last night and this morning, and Tao would prefer to let him recover for a day or two.

He took a shortcut through the Undercity on his way home, running through their food and their finances in his head. They’d have enough to get them through the end of the week, for sure, and maybe more if they were careful, but he needed work, and he needed it soon. He’d catch Charade tomorrow morning, maybe she’d have a lead for him.

Tao was hurrying along the darkened tunnels, thinking about what he might pick up for dinner, when he heard something that stopped him cold in his tracks.

Clanking chains.

Wide-eyed, Tao took a second to place himself in his mental map of Kirkwall. He was passing by the underground docks - was that - 

With horror growing in his gut, Tao slipped into the shadows and down the familiar hall towards the same dock where he’d found Jongin weeks ago. When he peeked around the corner, he saw, to his dismay, that his fears were correct - bodies on the ground, prisoners chained in a line, a small ship with no identifying markings.

Only this time, the prisoners were already on the ship, and the gangplank was being raised as Tao watched. If he’d arrived only seconds later, he wouldn't have even seen the prisoners, as they were already being taken below decks, disappearing from sight.

“Fuck,” Tao whispered, unable to stop the expletive from spilling out.

There hadn’t been any warning for this one, there _couldn’t_ have been. Tao had literally just checked the Hightown cache only an hour or so before. The ship was already weighing anchor, sailors with long poles pushing the ship away from the cliffside, and Tao had the sudden and very frightening realization that he was the only person who had any idea that this was happening.

The only person who could even attempt to stop it.

Even if he could run to get Jongin and back, it would be too late. Charade or Baekhyun might be out in the market aboveground, but there was no guarantee, and that ship was sailing now.

Tao was alone.

Everything inside him screamed that the very idea of it was a fool’s errand. Taking on half a dozen slavers by themselves, _on their ship,_ before they got far enough out to sea that Tao wouldn’t be able to get the ship back? Impossible. And Jongin was waiting for him, unable to leave for fear of getting locked out of the house by Tao’s wards, entirely dependant on Tao to come home.

Except there was a little part of him - that sounded like Ardor, annoyingly - dangling the memory of the Antivan raider captain who had liberated Tao, all those years ago. The man who had saved Tao’s life, and Tao had never even learned his name. Never been able to repay him. 

He could walk away, now, and no one could possibly blame him for it. One man, against an entire ship?

It was insanity.

And Tao _felt_ insane, stripping off his boots and socks and his heavy earrings, checking to be sure all his knives and daggers were secured, and running like an addle-brained _maniac_ towards down towards the docks. Before his extremely brief moment of courage could fizzle out, Tao dove headlong into the water.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

An eternity later, when the moon had risen and Jongin was finally calm enough, he opened the second letter, the one with the orange seal. Like the one Tao had gotten a glimpse of, this letter was signed with only an initial, V. But this letter was addressed to Meredith, not to Elthina. It was a long, rambling thing, all fancy penmanship and flowery prose, dense almost to the point of being unreadable.

 _I don’t understand,_ Ardor complained. _This letter talks in circles. What is this person trying to accomplish?_

“The writer wants the Viscount’s seat,” Jongin murmured, the pieces of it falling into place.

_...The what?_

“I suppose spirits of the Fade don’t really have politics.” Jongin skimmed over the letter again, making a face at the obsequious language. “Everyone in Kirkwall knows that the previous Viscount only held onto his position because Meredith endorsed him. He was killed three years ago in the Qunari uprising, and Meredith has made certain no one takes his place. She’s essentially running the city.”

_She can’t even be bothered to protect the streets from demons, how could she be running the city?_

Jongin snorted. “I didn’t say she was doing a good job of it.” Folding the letter closed, Jongin tapped it thoughtfully against his mouth. “The only person in the city who has any sort of authority over Meredith is Grand Cleric Elthina. This person, V, they’ve been writing to both Elthina and Meredith, asking for support in their bid for the Viscount’s office. But there’s been no announcement of anyone making a bid - does that mean they both turned V down?”

 _The letter mentions gifts,_ Ardor pointed out. _Bribes, perhaps. Of great value and procured at great expense. But what?_

“Lyrium,” Jongin realized. “There’s nothing else Meredith would need. Remember when we were down trying to get into the vault, Tao made a comment about it? Way more lyrium than one Circle should need, and lyrium is _expensive._ The Chantry wouldn’t be issuing that much, of _course,_ how did I never realize this before?”

 _You were a bit occupied,_ Ardor pointed out, and Jongin snorted at the truth of it. _V seems upset that their favor has not been returned. This letter reads like a very prettily veiled threat._

That made little sense. “What could a civilian use to _threaten_ someone like Meredith? She commands the largest, best outfitted and best trained military force in the Free Marches, and she has the full political backing of the Chantry. She’s basically untouchable.”

They continued to debate the possibilities for a while, back and forth, but had no further revelations, came to no conclusions. Jongin ended up pulling together a meager meal from what was left in the pantry, uneasily going over the events of the day again in his mind, with Ardor’s commentary. Karras, Sehun, Yixing, and now this letter, and the mysterious V.

Nothing actionable. Jongin was left to sit alone, unable to help anyone, which was pretty fucking typical.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It was _cold,_ the sun now almost completely set and the skies dark, but Tao had grown up literally _on_ the shore and if there was one thing he would never forget how to do, it was swim. He struck out immediately, aiming to keep himself behind the high-raised back of the ship, where there wasn’t anyone stationed on lookout. He’d never tried to sink into shadow while swimming, but he tried it now, knowing at best he would somewhat obscure his shape and hoping that would be enough.

He also tried to formulate a plan while swimming _and_ remaining shadowed, not an easy task. He did manage to recall that the last two slaving deals he had interrupted had both had about half a dozen slavers on hand, and about a dozen prisoners. In theory, they would outnumber the slavers, but in practice the prisoners were probably mostly unarmed, untrained civilians, and likely drugged.

Still, freeing Jongin and getting his help had worked, maybe he could try something similar here. It was better than no plan at all, anyway.

The waves were choppy closer to the ship, and it was a bit of a job to find something to grab on to, but fortunately for Tao, the ship’s hull had obviously not been cleaned in a while, and he was able to wrap his hands around some old barnacle shells and lever himself up and out of the water. Clinging like that to the side of a moving ship, badly shadow-cloaked because he could barely hold his concentration, Tao wondered again what the _fuck_ he was doing.

He didn’t know, really, but it looked like he was going to keep doing it, because he didn’t think he would ever sleep again if he let these monsters get away with a hold full of victims.

A whip-crack rang out, starling Tao so badly that he nearly slipped, catching his footing again just in time. It came from inside the ship, just on the other side of the hull, but the echo had come from above - 

Tao looked up. A porthole, roughly square-cut and fitted with wavery, cheap glass.

Right, then.

Getting his feet up onto the barnacle shells was difficult enough - good thing he was barefoot, even if the shells did cut painfully into the soles of his feet, as his boots would almost certainly have slipped off. But getting his body stretched up high enough to dig fingers into the sill of the porthole was close to impossible.

Tao nearly fell. He tried again.

Tao _did_ fall, hitting the water flat on his back with a painful slap. Salt stung his freshly cut feet and the force of the impact knocked his breath from him, but Tao was able to get his head above water and grab ahold of the barnacles again before the ship was out of reach. Winded, he caught his breath, pulling himself into the shadows and holding still, as voices above questioned what the noise was and torsos leaned out over the side to look.

The sun was low enough, the shadows deep enough, the water murky enough that they didn’t spot him, and quickly lost interest. Tao exhaled and glanced towards the prow of the ship - they were approaching the passage that separated Kirkwall’s little bay from the open sea, and he had a feeling that once they were through it, getting back would be very, very difficult. With that thought to spur him on, Tao hauled himself once more up the side, and this time, he managed to get a grip on the porthole sill and pull up to peek inside.

He took a quick look around, absorbing details, and then let his arms relax, hanging there with one foot on a barnacle, in what would have been a hilarious position if it wasn’t so life-threateningly insane. The prisoners were just dumped in the middle of the hold, still chained to each other, and, it looked like, to the wall. Most of them had looked groggy, a couple were crying or shaking with fear, but they couldn’t do much more than that because there was a pair of slaver guards in the room with whips, watching them. The porthole itself was latched from the inside and hinged on the outside, which meant it _opened_ to the outside, which meant there was no way in six hells he was going to be able get it open quietly.

But he didn’t have the time to find another way, so maybe sneaking was not going to be his mode of attack, here. Balancing carefully between one hand on the sill and one foot on a barnacle, Tao unclipped two of his best throwing knives from his shoulder belt. One he clenched between his teeth, and the other he grabbed backhanded with just his thumb against his palm.

Tao pushed upwards, feet scrambling up the side and arms straining to get him high enough, fast enough. He shattered the glass with the back end of his knife, effectively announcing his presence, and then threw the knife with everything he had. Not even looking to see if it landed, he pulled the second knife from his teeth and threw it as well, just before his arm failed and he slid back down the side.

Catching himself, Tao immediately jumped back up, as hard as he could manage with so little to push off of. He managed to get high enough to yank his body through the porthole, his shirt and skin ripping open on the remaining shards of glass, and tumbled headfirst into the hold, wet, bloody and panting.

He wanted nothing more than to flop onto the smelly decking and catch his breath, but he forced himself to roll up onto his feet, hurriedly unsheathing daggers. Only then did he get a look at the situation.

One of the two slaver guards was down, screaming bloody murder, Tao’s knife plunged neatly his thigh. The other knife was laying uselessly on the floor, seemingly having not connected with anything. But it didn’t seem to matter much, because one of the prisoners - a woman, older, broad-shouldered and dressed in simple, serviceable clothes - had thrown her chained hands over the man’s head and was well into the gruesome process of choking him to death.

With another thrown knife - much better aimed, now that he wasn’t clinging to the side of the ship - Tao silenced the downed guard, and a couple of seconds later, the other one dropped, lifeless. “That one has the keys,” the woman snapped, pointing; she couldn’t go any further than she had gone already, at the end of her chain.

Tao hurried to search the guard he’d killed. The keys were on a ring at his belt; he pulled them off and tossed them to the woman as shouts from above decks warned them they had little time. “Looks like you had it under control,” he muttered.

The look she gave him was half amused, half withering, as she freed herself. “Sometimes a half-second’s distraction is all you need. They’re coming down, you have a weapon I can use?” Her tone was urgent. Behind her, the other prisoners were only just starting to come to their senses. Why hadn’t the drugs lasted as long on her?

When he handed her one of his knives, he got his answer. The veins running over the back of her hand were tinted blue.

“Hide,” she hissed, and dropped down into the haphazard pile of slaves, keeping her unchained hands tucked out of sight behind another person’s back and the knife tucked between her fingers. Tao stepped back and melted into the shadows in the corner as the hold opened, and two more men and a woman came down stairs.

“What the bleeding _fuck_ \- ” One of the men came over to examine the corpses on the floor, while the other man and the woman drew weapons and turned quickly, looking for the culprit. With all the slaves still apparently bound and chained, and at least one of the bodies too far away to have been touched by them, they seemed to assume the attacker was from the outside.

They found the broken glass, but they didn’t find Tao, walking right past him as if he wasn’t there. Tao waited until the lone man was in arm’s reach of the Templar woman, and then he dropped his shadows just enough to catch her attention and nod.

She struck, and so did he.

It was over fast. Even with being outnumbered and the slavers being better armed, the element of surprise did most of the work, helped along by Tao’s efficient precision and the Templar’s training and strength. When the three slavers were down, Tao met her in the middle of the room, keeping his voice very quiet. “How many of them are left?”

“I didn’t get a chance to count,” the woman said. “There were at least six to start, not sure how many more. They drugged me, I wasn’t in complete control of my faculties.” She blinked as if she was just seeing him for the first time. “I’m Agatha. Who are you?”

“Name’s Tao.”

She nodded, and said, “What’s the plan now?”

The trained Templar officer was asking _him?_ “There can’t be that many more of them,” Tao said, looking at the five bodies on the ground. “Unless you know how to sail a ship, we’ll need to keep at least some of them alive, to get us to shore.”

“The captain is a blond man with a scraggly beard,” Agatha said. “He’ll be our best bet.” She looked down at the rest of the prisoners, only some of whom seemed to be in the process of coming to their senses. “Best to leave them down here for now.”

Tao agreed, and they quickly formulated a plan. He went to the staircase, cloaking himself in shadow, and called out, “Captain, you should come see this!”

It took but a few moments for the Captain himself to come down the stairs, looking disgruntled. “What is going on down -”

Agatha snared him from behind, locking both hands behind his back and holding the knife to his neck. “Turn the ship around,” she demanded.

“What the fuck -” He struggled, but Agatha was inhumanly strong, and held him easily. “Bitch, how the _hell_ did you get free?”

Twisting his arms back harder, Agatha forced his chin up with the knife. “We are about to march up those stairs,” she snarled. “You will order your remaining crew to turn the ship around and sail back to Kirkwall, or you will die, like the five men I’ve already killed.” Making it seem like Agatha had gotten free and wrecked this much destruction by herself was part of the plan; they were hoping to frighten the man into acquiescence.

The slaver captain jerked helplessly against her grip. “It’s not possible,” he said. She yanked on him harder, and he gasped, “It’s not _possible,_ you _crazy_ \- You can’t approach Kirkwall from this direction without a full team of rowers. The cliffs channel the wind directly to the west. It would take hours to swing around to the other side of the passage and get back to the harbor.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Then you will order your men to drive the ship aground on the Wounded Coast.”

Horrified, the captain gaped. “Are you insane?!”

“Your ship in exchange for your life, Captain,” Agatha snarled. “Make your choice.”

As they’d hoped, the Captain chose to live. He agreed, and Agatha marched him up the stairs, with Tao silently following.

There were three crew members left, and all of them shouted and drew weapons when they saw their Captain’s predicament, but the Captain stayed them with a command. “Do as she says,” he told them. “Turn towards the shore.”

Warily, they did as instructed, angling sails and rudder to take the ship across the current and towards the rocky beaches and broken cliffs of the Wounded Coast.

It was a tense few minutes. Even Tao could see that the Captain had been right; the wind was blowing strongly westward and sailing at an angle to it was the best they could do. He kept a silent eye on the crew members, watching for treachery, as they neared the shoreline.

“How did you capture me?” Agatha suddenly asked. Her volume was low, meant for the Captain’s ears only, but Tao was close enough to hear her.

The man she was holding half-glanced over his shoulder, his face incredulous. “We drugged you,” he said, with an implied _obviously._

She yanked on his arms. “I know _that,_ nugbrain. Why were you at the Gallows ferry dock?”

“Oh, that? We don’t just make pickups, you know, we do deliveries too. You just happened to walk by at the wrong time. Nothing personal, you know.”

Several pieces clicked into place, and Tao bit back a noise of realization, forcing himself to remain silent and hidden. Jongin, and that other mage, Emile, too… It made sense.

“Deliveries?” Agatha was saying. “What could _you_ possibly be delivering to the Gallows?”

The captain eyed her over his shoulder. “Well, after the ship runs aground I’m going to have to run for it anyway, so I guess it won’t matter if I tell you. Lyrium, we were delivering lyrium.”

Agatha’s eyes widened. “That’s where the extra lyrium was coming from,” she realized. “Smugglers. And Meredith had to have known.” She shook her head, disgusted.

The captain snorted, sounding almost amused. “Think that big Lieutenant that was in charge of receiving it was probably skimming off the top for himself, but hey, that’s not my business.”

Her eyes narrowing, Agatha opened her mouth to reply, but at that very moment, they hit the coastline. The entire ship jerked, hull crunching on the rocks. Everyone stumbled, including Agatha, and that’s when the Captain struck.

He ripped free of Agatha’s momentarily loosened grip, drew his own knife from his belt, and slit her throat, so fast that Tao didn’t even have time to yell a warning, let alone stop him.

Tao burst into motion before he stopped to think. Like Death itself manifest in the night, he slew two of the crew members before they even recovered from running aground, and the third had barely enough time to yell before she was dead, too.

The Captain came at him, but Tao was ready. To someone who had recently sparred with a Templar and fought for his life against shades and abominations, the Captain’s swing was pathetically slow; Tao caught it on his crossguard, yanked the man off-balance, and stabbed him square in the gut in one fast, brutal motion.

The slaver Captain fell, leaving Tao the last man standing on the deck of a sinking ship.

He didn’t even wait for the man’s corpse to hit the deck. He sprinted over to Agatha and took the keys from her still body, ignoring his weariness, the shivering ache in his muscles, the chill of his still-wet clothes and the sting of his sliced skin.

Time enough for that later. A dozen innocent people still needed his help.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Hours later, well after the nightfall bell, Tao was still not home.

Jongin began to worry.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Getting the groggy, weary, and terrified prisoners freed, off the ship, and herded down the coastline and back to Kirkwall took over an hour, and every bit of energy Tao had left in him. He was limping badly, having been forced to walk barefoot over the rocks the entire way, and so tired he could barely see straight by the time they were back inside the city gates and scattered to return to their homes.

He’d done it. He’d saved them. Old men and young women, teenagers and parents, peasants and merchants and nobles. The dozen of them were from all different backgrounds, but they all had the same story - they’d been out alone for some reason, and had been drugged and taken before they’d known what was happening.

This was insane, and it had to stop. Too tired to be furious, Tao promised himself that he would look into it in the morning - but first, he needed his things back, and then he needed his bed. All he wanted was to snuggle into Jongin’s arms and sleep for a week.

The Undercity docks felt miles away, but he eventually made it back, and thankfully nothing had been touched. Dropping on his ass onto the dirty stone, Tao wiped the blood and gravel from his tender feet and carefully pulled his socks and boots back on.

He was in the process of buckling on his second boot when his entire body just… Stopped. Stilled, as if frozen.

“Well,” a stranger’s voice said. “Looks like we finally found the meddler.”

Unable to jump to his feet, to move, to scream, to do _anything,_ Tao only managed to cast his eyes to the side. He saw polished, expensive shoes with tight leather trousers, and black, comfortable boots under a long robe.

Then, the world went dark.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

It was now well, _well_ past midnight, late enough that Jongin couldn’t even tell how late it was, and Tao was still not home.

Something was definitely wrong. He didn’t need Ardor jittering around anxiously in his mind to know that, but the fact that Ardor _was_ anxious helped him to feel like his fears weren’t unfounded, anyway.

_There is nothing normal or reasonable that would keep Tao from returning to you after what happened today,_ Ardor said, with grim certainty. _Something has happened to him._

“I know.” Jongin glanced out the window. “It’s so late. He always avoids being out this late, it’s so dangerous out there. You don’t think…” He trailed off, his nervous pacing coming to a halt.

_The wards are still up, so he is still alive. But for how long?_

“Maker have mercy,” Jongin whispered, and went to get a satchel.

_If you leave, you’ll get locked out._

“I know. I think I have to take the risk.”

_I think you’re right._

Jongin quickly gathered up everything he could think to gather. Multiple potions, what remained of the food, some money, his staff, and one of Tao’s extra daggers with a sheath, shoved rather gracelessly into his belt at the small of his back. He also tucked Sehun’s letter into his belt pouch, and the letter from V. If he couldn’t find Tao, there was a chance he’d not be able to get back into the apartment at all, and he didn’t want to lose either his clue, or the written proof that Sehun loved him.

He left a note on the table near the door, telling Tao to wait here if he returned, and then let the door seal behind him.

Lowtown at night was very dangerous, and he knew it. Jongin did not carry light with him as he walked, for fear of announcing his presence; he kept his staff from clacking on the stones and stepped as quietly as he could manage, staying close to the buildings and the shadowed alleyways. He’d never been out this late, and never been out at night without Tao, and so he could only rely on own senses and Ardor’s to warn him of attack.

The first thing he did was head to the Lowtown Red Jenny cache, hidden behind a loose brick in a dirty alleyway. He left a quickly scrawled note to Charade, informing her that Tao was missing, using initials instead of names just in case. Hopefully, she would see it first thing in the morning.

Tao’s note had said he was looking for work, so Jongin decided to try tracing his footsteps, first. He followed their usual path around the city, checking each cache for clues, looking for any kind of hint of a struggle.

If being out alone at night wasn’t making him jumpy enough, Jongin couldn’t stop running through all the possible reasons why Tao might not have made it home. Did he get picked up by the city guard, thrown in a cell for the night? Did he fall, break a leg, unable to get help? Did he get robbed, knocked out and left for dead in an alley somewhere?

Each possibility that ran through his head was worse and worse, and Ardor wasn’t helping his anxiety, urging Jongin to move faster and to be more observant at the same time. Jongin wanted to argue, but Ardor was right, so he just grit his teeth and did the best he could.

A cache run took several hours on a good day, let alone in the middle of the night when Jongin was fearful of being seen and jumping at every flicker of movement. The sky was already starting to lighten by the time Jongin finished, and he had nothing to show for it. None of the jobs listed had Tao’s mark on them to indicate that he had taken them, and there was nothing anywhere that Jongin had seen that might give a clue as to where he might have gone.

It was like he’d just disappeared. But that couldn’t be the case, right? Nobody just _disappeared._

He wasn’t going to give up, but since the sun would be up within the hour, Jongin figured he should head back home and see if Tao had returned while he was away. If not, he’d come back up to Hightown and try to find Charade.

Out of habit - and wasn’t it funny that it was already _habit,_ after only a few weeks - Jongin took the Undercity paths home, to save a little time. He was halfway home, moving weary and slow, when Ardor suddenly jangled like a bell in his mind, pulling him up short.

_I sense blood._

There was always blood in the Undercity, and Ardor often made internal comment on it as they passed, but Jongin could sense through the spirit that this blood was fresh, and that something about it was familiar. Silently, Jongin asked where, and Ardor showed him, making the sense of where the blood was appear like an invisible sparkle at the edge of his vision.

When Jongin realized just _where_ the blood was coming from, he broke into a full-on sprint.

Ardor led him directly to the docks where he’d first met Tao, with fresh corpses on the ground, two elves. But though there was blood there - a lot of it - Ardor pulled Jongin’s attention away, towards a shadowed corner.

Tao’s earrings, in a terrifyingly wide pool of blood.

Silence roared in Jongin’s ears, fury overwhelming his mind. Ardor was right there with him, drawing on his anger and his fear, turning it around and feeding it back to him as a need to _act._

Tao was in danger, and Jongin was going to find him. But how?

His eyes lit on the pool.

_Jongin,_ Ardor said warningly. _Is that wise?_

Weren’t you the one who originally encouraged me to use blood magic? Jongin thought, annoyed.

_That was before I understood how it would affect humans. You heard what Justice said! Too much power could corrupt me, turn me into a demon and you into an abomination._

“I trust you. I’ll be careful, I promise. But Tao needs me, he needs _us._ He could be dying right now!” The blood was already hours old, this was no time for principles.

_You’re no good to Tao if you are driven insane, or if you attract a demon strong enough to burn me out of you._

Was that a real fear? Jongin didn’t know, but he didn’t have time to argue. He drew Tao’s knife. “I’m spilling blood either way,” he warned Ardor. “Either show me how to use it, or don’t.”

A sense of frustration, and under it, a tiny bit of pleased pride. _You have changed,_ Ardor murmured.

“Maybe not for the better,” Jongin grumbled, but there was a little part of him that basked in Ardor’s approval. “There might be another way, but I don’t think I have time to look for it.” He picked up Tao’s earrings, careful not to wipe the blood away. “Show me what to do.”

_A small cut,_ Ardor said, _and mix your blood with his._

Jongin did as he was told.

He made the cut high on his forearm, high enough that his sleeve could cover it while he healed, just enough to make blood well up onto the blade. Quickly, he held the knife over the earrings and let his blood drip onto them. Inside his mind, Ardor showed him how to grab ahold of the power inherent in blood, how to weave it with the fading power in Tao’s blood, to strengthen it, to tie them together.

The moment he touched the power, the entire world shifted around him. Suddenly, Jongin could feel the fabric of reality itself, could feel the Veil that separated the mortal realm from the Fade. He felt consciousnesses, awarenesses, like dozens of eyes had suddenly turned towards him.

_Concentrate,_ Ardor whispered.

Jongin kept working, trying hard to focus on weaving the pattern Ardor was showing him. Foreign, alien presences brushed against him, pressing through the fabric of the Veil to try to touch him. Emotions spiked in his heart, so violent and quick that he knew they could not be natural - first his deathly, awful fear that he was going to be too late, then his utter fury that anyone would dare to hurt Tao, then, most insidiously, his smug pride, that the spell was working, that he had harnessed this forbidden power and made it bend to his will.

Ardor wrapped more closely around him. _Go away,_ it said. _This one is claimed._

Terror and Rage retreated, Jongin felt them go. Pride did not. It chuckled in Jongin’s mind, oily. Jongin pointedly ignored it, finishing the spell. The blood soaked into the earrings, disappearing; instead now Jongin could see a faintly glowing red line emanating from them, leading out of the docks and down a passage.

He exhaled heavily. “I did it,” he said.

_You did,_ Ardor murmured, and Jongin flushed with pride again. _Now let’s go save him._

Why? With this kind of power, Jongin could - 

Jongin scowled and shook his head, trying to throw Pride out of his mind. The ease with which the demon slipped into his thoughts was more than a little terrifying; if he didn’t have Ardor in there with him, directly addressing the demon and making it clear what was happening, would Jongin have even realized he was being influenced?

_This little scrap of nothing does you injustice,_ a foreign voice murmured. _Ardor holds you back. This is child’s play compared to what I can show you._ Jongin saw Karras screaming in agony, just a flash of an image, but it left him breathless. _I can give you what you need._

For the first time ever, Jongin actually reached out internally and pulled Ardor closer to _him,_ like a child hugging a security blanket. Fuck off, Pride, he thought. You’re barking up the wrong tree, with me.

_Its name is Hubris,_ Ardor told him. _The downfall of men._

“Not the downfall of me,” Jongin muttered. Tao needed him, and nothing was going to distract him from that - not even an immortal demon.

He started moving, following the trail, focusing hard on his surroundings and not the internal battle he could feel in his mind, Hubris and Ardor jostling each other for control. Hubris was stronger - _far_ stronger - but Ardor had the advantage of already being deeply rooted in Jongin’s mind, like an army barricaded inside a castle. Together, they held the demon at bay.

“No wonder so many blood mages go insane,” Jongin mumbled to himself.

_Blood magic itself was never the issue,_ Ardor said. _But the power attracts attention, and not every mage can resist the temptation that follows._

Laughter, slimy. _Very few,_ Hubris agreed. _Mortals all fall eventually._

_Ignore it,_ Ardor murmured, wrapping even closer around Jongin, muffling the sense of evil glee. _Look, we’re approaching stairs._

_You think you’re any better?_ Hubris asked, and Jongin sensed Ardor’s indignance. _Look at you, dragged along by a mortal’s desires. You’ll fall too, high and mighty spirit. And then you’ll realize mortals are toys and tools, meant for use, not partnership._

_Shut up._

_Is it not true? You think you are helping him, but what have you done, other than make him reliant on you? He clings to you like a shipwrecked sailor clings to a fallen mast; you do nothing for him but keep him afloat. And you’re the one who wrecked his ship in the first place._

Ardor faltered, doubt seeping in. Jongin paused on the stairs. Don’t listen to it, he thought, trying to send his reassurance to Ardor. You’re very important to me.

More nasty, slick laughter. _Of course you are. You engineered it that way._

Jongin frowned. “That’s not how it went,” he thought, but now he was doubting, too.

_You know it’s true. Ardor upended your world, and then presented itself as the solution to all of the problems that it created. You really think Ardor did all this just to help some mortal to find his nebulous ‘purpose’?”_

_I did it to help Jongin,_ Ardor snapped. _You’re a selfish piece of shit and would never understand that._

_You forced him to run from his home and you are eating his body from the inside out._

“Both of you, shut the fuck up,” Jongin growled, shaking his head hard. “You can argue over my immortal soul _after_ I save Tao.” He started again up the stairs without bothering to wait for a response.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Waking felt like crawling up out of quicksand, like being dragged by his neck to the surface of a murky ocean. Tao sucked in air like it was his first breath in years, jerking awake.

Fog filled his mind, and his limbs felt like lead. Full-body pain came back to his awareness next, followed by blinding light; he winced and grunted and tried to lift his hand to cover his eyes.

He could not. Tao jerked, but biting pressure around his wrists and ankles held him down.

“There, see? He is awake. Now can we begin?”

Tao looked to the side and squinted into the sunlight, angling in through lovely, expensive stained glass windows. It took a long moment for his eyes to adjust, and in that moment he realized that he _hurt._ Not the ache that should have come from pushing his body to the limit or hitting the ground too hard, but slicing, stabbing pain, all over his body.

He bent enough to look down at himself, and saw that he was bolted to a table with iron manacles at his ankles and wrists. His armor was gone, and his dark blue shirt was sliced open in a dozen places and stained with a horrifying amount of half-dried blood. 

“Where am I?” he asked, the first thing that came to mind. He was not answered. 

Tao heard a whimper from his other side, and turned his head. There was an elven woman chained beside him, wide-eyed and hyperventilating, greying blonde hair soaked with sweat. He realized, once his eyes adjusted to the light enough to make out her features, that he recognized her - she was one of many servants he often saw running errands or gossiping around Hightown first thing in the morning.

“What are you doing?” Tao tried again, turning instead to look at the man who was standing nearby, watching. “Let us go, what the _fuck._ ”

“Not likely.” The man ambled over, looking Tao and the servant over with disinterest, even disdain. He was grey-haired and grey-eyed, with thin, ratlike features and well-tailored clothing in expensive fabrics. “I have been looking for you for some time, my friend. Do you know how much those slaves you freed were worth?” The man didn’t bother to wait for Tao to answer. “Well, it hardly matters. Your meddling ends now.”

Tao yanked on the manacles with all his strength, everything he had, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain of his open wounds jostling. He hoped that perhaps the bolts were not quite secure, but no such luck - he was immobile. “Who even _are_ you?” he asked. “You can’t have been chasing me very well, I didn’t even notice you.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” the man said. “It is a testament to my caution and planning that you had no idea I was looking for you. Wouldn’t have done well to tip you off, would it?”

“He’s Magistrate Vanard,” the elven servant whispered. Tao’s eyes widened - a magistrate? A fucking _judge_ had been capturing and selling slaves?!

Vanard scowled. “Shut up, woman. You’re only making this worse for yourself.”

“He’s working with a Tevinter blood mage, he’s going to enthrall the Grand Cleric to make her declare him Viscount -” She froze, mouth open in a silent gasp.

“Stupid elf,” a new voice murmured. From a shadowed doorway, another man appeared, mustachioed and dressed in dark, elegant robes, much richer and showier than any Circle mage. That alone marked him as Tevinter - no mage outside the Imperium would advertise their magehood so blatantly. “Are you _trying_ to throw your life away now?”

Snorting, Vanard crossed his arms. “Her life was forfeit from the moment she betrayed us to warn _him._ Red Jenny, indeed.”

Tao blinked, absorbing that. They thought _he_ was Red Jenny?

Well, of course they would think that, why wouldn’t they? Unless you knew how the Friends worked, you might think that every missive in the cache was meant for one person.

“No,” the Tevinter mage said, stroking fingers down the elf’s cheek. “Her life was forfeit when she lost my amulet.”

Wait.

What?

“The sun is fully risen, Marcus,” Vanard was saying, as Tao’s ears roared with the implications. Had he - was that - no. _No._ “You have your sacrifices, let’s get on with it!”

He’d found the plea for the Tevinter amulet in the same cache as the warnings about the slavers. He hadn’t connected them, why would he? Were they in the same handwriting? Tao couldn’t remember.

He’d thought the amulet was just somebody’s sentimental junk - he hadn’t realized - _fuck._

The Tevinter mage, Marcus, went to the foot of the table and turned something, some kind of crank that made the end of the table rachet up. Blood rushed towards Tao’s head as both his and the woman’s feet were tilted upwards, far enough that the manacles bit heavily into his feet and hands, all his weight suspended from those points.

Tao craned his neck backwards, and found a complex, candle-studded circle inscribed on the wood floor underneath his head.

“Creators save us,” he breathed. “No, _stop,_ you fucking _demonic_ \- ” 

He got no more words out; the gesture of one finger silenced him. “Please be patient,” Marcus told him. “Your turn will come soon enough.”

He put his hand on the woman’s sternum, just below her collarbone, and began to chant, something old and so evil that Tao could feel it in his _teeth._ The woman, unable to scream, turned her head and looked at Tao, with a terror so pure, so complete, that Tao tried to scream for her.

He couldn’t. He could do nothing but watch, as blood rose and spilled from the woman’s eyes and mouth, coating her face and draining through her hair to pour onto the ritual circle below their heads.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

There was a door at the top of the stairs, and Jongin cracked it open only ever so slightly, first. When he heard no sound, saw no light, he carefully opened it.

The building was dusty, silent. Abandoned. Jongin closed the door behind him and looked around. The boarded-over doorways, the creaking floorboards, the empty furniture - he recognized it all, because he’d been through here only a few hours before.

_Wait. This is -_

Jongin nodded. It was the building that hid the Hightown cache.

_The trail goes cold,_ Ardor noted, sounding frustrated. _It ends right here, right at the top of the ladder. How could that be?_

_You can’t tell? The area is warded,_ Hubris murmured, smug. 

“Will you go away, already?” Jongin said out loud. Hubris’s voice made his mind feel weird and gross.

_I could help you break through it._

Fuck. Jongin froze. “You’re lying.”

_I am not. Let me in, and I will take you right to your lover, and give you everything you need to get him back safely. I swear it._

It was a horrifying choice. Did he accept the demon’s help for Tao’s sake, and risk becoming an abomination? Or did he refuse, and risk Tao’s life in the process?

Tao might already be dead.

Tao might be moments from death, and Jongin’s hesitation might cost him his life.

Hubris would almost certainly kill him, but if it kept its promise… Jongin would give his life in exchange for Tao’s. That wasn’t even in question, not at this point. But he had no way of knowing if Hubris would keep its promise, and if Jongin gave up his life for nothing, Tao would still be in danger anyway.

_You know what you must do,_ Hubris said, even as Ardor jostled against it and frantically told Jongin not to listen. Pressing his hands over his ears, Jongin dropped into a crouch, desperately trying to _think_ past the noise in his head.

As he dropped, his belt pouch got caught between his legs and his stomach, and he heard a crinkle. Sehun’s letter. The sound made him pause, made him look at the problem from another direction.

How could he even be considering letting a demon in, when Sehun had just admitted he loved him? Was he planning to throw that away?

_That doesn’t matter,_ Hubris said, but Jongin knew better. He reached into his bag and pulled out the letter.

Both letters.

Staring at the orange seal, Jongin had a sudden realization.

This was the building where the Hightown cache was located. The cache where all of the warnings about the slaving deals had been hidden. Tao had mentioned that this cache was almost entirely used by the servants of nobles.

The mysterious V in the letters was very likely a noble, judging by the wax seal, the florid language and the claim to the viscounty. V had been bribing Meredith with enormous amounts of very expensive, very illegal lyrium.

How had V gotten the money for that much lyrium? Even for nobility, the price tag would be steep; the Kirkwall gossip ring would have noticed if a noble was suddenly draining their coffers for an unknown reason. Where could they possibly be getting the money?

Maybe... by selling slaves.

It was a bit of a leap, but it made a sick sort of sense. Kirkwall’s nobility was never the richest to begin with - all the _really_ rich families moved away years ago - and anyone who was insane enough to want to be Viscount in Kirkwall was easily insane enough to capture and sell people to get it.

“V,” Jongin muttered. “Who is V?” He didn’t have much else, but maybe if he could figure out _who_ V was, he could figure out where Tao was.

_Hmm. He’s smarter than he looks._

_Fuck off, Hubris,_ Ardor said, throwing waves of admiration and encouragement at Jongin. _Come on, Jongin, we can figure this out._

Jongin got to his feet and went out the half-boarded-over door to the street. The sun was rising, now, and there were a few servants out and about. No one paid him any mind - probably they saw people sneaking in and out of that boarded-over house all the time.

Most of the Hightown mansions had names displayed on them, old family names, fancy foreigner’s names, lofty-sounding titles. It didn’t take him long at all to find what he was looking for - it was literally right next door.

The same pattern as on the orange seal, carved in stone above a sign that declared the building to be the home of a Magistrate Vanard.

“Got you,” Jongin said.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

When the outer door opened, Sehun jumped to his feet, thinking maybe that it was Yixing, come to bring him his singular daily meal and, hopefully, news of Jongin.

It was not Yixing. It was Karras, and he was dismissing the guards in the room, leaving them alone. Sehun came to the cell door and stared through the window, keeping his face calmly defiant, even though his mind was rioting with disappointment and apprehension.

Karras would not be visiting him for any _good_ reason, and he knew it. He was here to gloat about something. Was it Jongin? Yixing? Had they discovered Sehun’s letter?

Leaning in so his face was close to the bars, Karras grinned, sharp and mean. “How’s the view?” he asked, conversational. “You enjoying the sea air, up here?”

“Oh yeah,” Sehun said, trying not to grit his teeth. “It’s lovely. You should try it sometime.”

Karras actually _guffawed,_ a full-out belly laugh that made Sehun ache to punch him in the face. “Not likely,” he said. “No, I think you’ll have this view to yourself for a day or two.”

“What do you want, Karras?” Sehun snapped. “You didn’t climb all those stairs just to compliment the view.”

“No, that’s true. I climbed all those stairs because I wanted to be the one to tell you that Meredith has made her judgement.” Karras was still grinning, but it had turned smug. “You’re to be executed.”

Time seemed to stop. Sehun blinked, and blinked again, sure he hadn’t heard right. “What?”

“I told her how long I’d been tracking you. How many times you’ve snuck away, the ritual books you took from the Enchanter’s library. Didn’t take her long to realize what I already knew.” Karras spit on the floor. “You’re not under enthrallment, you’re a damned sympathizer. A traitor to the Maker, to the Order, and to humanity.”

Shit. _Shit._ Sehun set his jaw and didn’t answer.

“Meredith’s given me free reign to do whatever it takes to bring your little maleficar _boytoy_ in. So I’m taking out all of the hunting parties, and we’re combing Lowtown day and night until we find him.” he leered through the bars. “And then she’s going to make an example out of you both.”

Sehun could not keep his eyes from widening, a fact which seemed to fill Karras with glee. 

“Just picture it! All of the mages and Templars assembled in the Gallows courtyard, watching the entire thing. She’ll make Jongin Tranquil first. Make you watch as we burn the evil right out of his body.” Thin lips curled, under maniacally burning blue eyes. “Then, I will take your head off myself. And your precious little mage will watch you fall without any emotion at all.”

Sehun hit the door so hard, it made the entire room rattle. “You’ll never fucking catch him,” he snarled, his heart hammering in his chest, praying with everything he had that it was true. “He’s stronger than you know, he has friends, you’ll _never_ find him.”

“Please. He’s not leaving the city as long as you’re in it, and everyone has to eat sometime. He’ll come out of his hole eventually, and even if he doesn’t, he’s only got a day or two to hide, anyway.” Karras’s eyebrows raised, like he was sharing a delightful secret. “Meredith sent away for the Rite of Annulment over a week ago.”

Silence.

“...What?” Sehun whispered, stunned almost speechless.

“You heard me.”

“But she can’t - there’s no justification - ”

“The city is _overrun_ with demons and maleficar,” Karras snapped. “Not even you can deny that it is long since past the time for desperate measures. The mages of Kirkwall are corrupted, from the youngest apprentices to the eldest apostates, and every. Single. One. Will _die._ ”

All of the air had twisted from Sehun’s lungs. His vision was tunneling, focusing oddly on Karras’s smirk, his hideous mutton-chops. “The Knight-Vigilant would never allow that,” he said, but he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that that was not going to matter. The Knight-Vigilant was over a week’s travel away. By the time word got to him, it would be too late.

Karras leaned closer to the bars. “We will go from house to house,” he hissed. “Door to fucking door. We will scour this filthy city clean. Maybe your mage will find a way to avoid my hunt, but he won’t avoid the purge, Sehun. And once we have him, you’ll -”

An explosion rocked the tower, making the room sway under their feet.

Sehun grabbed for the door frame, catching himself to keep from stumbling, and opened his mouth to ask what the _fuck_ Karras had done. But he looked up and saw that Karras was also clutching the wall, and he was staring over Sehun’s shoulder, with genuine, slackjawed surprise on his face.

Sehun turned.

Through the tiny, barred window that overlooked the city, he could see an enormous beam of red light, shooting straight up into the sky. A wave of heat rolled out, so powerful that Sehun could feel it on his face from across the bay.

The explosion was rooted at the top of the cliffside, in Hightown.

“...Maker have mercy,” Karras whispered.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The explosion rocked the entire room, shaking the house to its foundations. Tao jerked wildly against his bonds, instinctively trying to grab onto something to steady himself, but he was still held fast.

When the shaking stopped, Vanard had to pick himself up off the floor. “What in _blazes_ was that?” he snapped. “What did you do?!” 

“It wasn’t me.” The blood mage, Marcus, had grabbed onto the table to hold himself up.

“This was supposed to be _subtle,_ you moron!”

“It. Wasn’t. Me.” Pointing at the ritual circle on the floor, Marcus said, “If it had worked, the circle would have turned red. The spell didn’t take, something went wrong.”

Tao managed to take a tiny bit of joy from the angry, pulsing vein in Vanard’s forehead. “Then kill the other one, and try again! What am I paying you for?!”

Marcus raised his hand, and Vanard went suddenly silent, fingers scrabbling against the invisible hold on his neck. “You will not speak to me that way, ever again,” he said.

Vanard glared, but he was effectively silenced. Satisfied with this, Marcus drew a knife, one of Tao’s own knives from the belts tossed haphazardly on a nearby chair. He turned to Tao.

“...What are you doing?” Tao asked, jerking against the bonds. “Don’t come near me!”

“Hush. This one won’t kill you.” Marcus made another incision in Tao’s shoulder, whispering unintelligible words as the blood welled up. Nausea surged in Tao’s stomach, yanked on by the foreign magic being worked through him.

Marcus’s eyes slit open. He pursed his lips, thoughtful. “Now that is very odd,” he muttered.

“What?” Vanard asked. Marcus ignored him, moving towards the window. “What’s odd? What happened?”

“Do you ever shut up?” Marcus asked as he leaned, looking out the window and up. “...Well. That certainly tosses a wrench in the plan.” He straightened. “The spell didn’t work because Elthina is dead.”

Vanard scoffed at him. “What are you talking about?”

Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, Marcus turned away from the window. “See for yourself,” he said. As Vanard went to the window to look, Marcus came back over to Tao.

“Maker,” Vanard whispered, frozen in place at the window with his eyes turned upward. “The Chantry…”

“I suppose we have no more use for you,” Marcus said to Tao, ignoring Vanard in the background. “Pity. After all that preparation.”

“Just let me go, then,” Tao tried.

Marcus smiled at him, condescending. “A valiant attempt, but no. You have seen too much. Goodbye.” He raised the knife.

Unable to move to defend himself, Tao could only gasp.

Lightning streaked down from the ceiling. Marcus _screamed,_ and Tao nearly jumped out of his skin, immediately looking frantically around.

And there was Jongin, standing in the doorway with his staff raised, and fury on his face unlike anything Tao had ever seen.

Marcus dropped, stunned. Jongin raced forward, his hands outstretched. “Are you alive? Tao!”

“I’m alive,” Tao assured him. He’d never been so happy to see someone in his life. “Get me out of here, hurry!”

“Fuck, oh, Andraste, there’s so much blood,” Jongin gasped. His eyes were flashing, brown to green and back again - was he having trouble controlling Ardor? “Okay, okay, hold still. Very still.”

He wrapped a hand around the cuff binding Tao’s right wrist, and blasted it open with a small bolt of lightning. Tao’s wrist burned, but he didn’t care even a _little,_ yanking it free without a second’s thought to the pain. Jongin moved to do the same to Tao’s right ankle.

From the floor behind Jongin, Marcus gestured sharply. Tao screamed a warning, but he was too late.

As if suddenly sliced by a hundred knives, blood exploded from Jongin’s body.

Time seemed to slow. Tao saw the flicker of green in Jongin’s eyes fade, saw his back arch, his lips drop open in surprise. Saw the blood arc in waves, hanging in the air for a split second, perfectly red and fresh, almost glittering in the colored light from the windows.

Without a sound, Jongin fell. He collapsed into a boneless pile of flesh and blood, unmoving.

“Jongin!” Tao screamed his name, unable to process what he was seeing. “Jongin! _Jongin! Jong -_ ”

He was silenced again, magic pressing his words back down his throat. Marcus was dragging himself up off the floor. “Don’t bother,” he said, dusting off his robes. “He’s gone.”

Tao couldn’t scream anymore, but he could cry.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

When the red light faded, it took Sehun a moment to realize what was wrong, what was missing. In point of fact, he _didn’t_ realize it - Karras did.

“The Chantry is gone,” Karras said, sounding just as confused, just as horrified as Sehun felt. “It’s just - It’s _gone._ ”

And he was right. The Chantry was the second-tallest building in Kirkwall, second only to the Viscount’s keep, and the familiar pointed spire was completely missing, a hole in the silhouette of the city.

“That was no explosive,” Karras said slowly. “That was no Qunari black powder. That was _magic._ ” The anticipatory tone of his voice, so completely incongruous with the horrifying magnitude of what they had just witnessed, made Sehun turn to look at him sharply. “This is it. This is what we needed.”

So stunned and confused was Sehun that it took him too long to realize what Karras was thinking. When it hit him, his stomach dropped out. “No. Oh, no.”

“Oh, _yes._ ” Karras actually smiled, bared his teeth in sickening glee. “No need to wait for the Knight-Vigilant’s permission now. The Chantry has been destroyed, a clear act of magical terrorism. This is _exactly_ the proof we were waiting for.”

The alarm bell started to chime, from far below.

“Karras,” Sehun warned.

“Save it. The Rite of Annulment has been invoked. We’re going to kill every mage in Kirkwall, Circle or apostate alike, and _you_ are going to sit right here and watch,” Karras said, and grinned again, triumphant. “Don’t worry. If I get to Jongin before someone else does, I’ll make sure I drag him right back up here so you can watch the light leave his eyes.”

“ _KARRAS,_ ” Sehun roared, but it was too late. Karras was already gone, the door swinging shut behind him and leaving Sehun alone.

Swearing and praying by turns, Sehun went to the window and yanked on the bars. It was futile, he knew - he’d already tested them thoroughly - but he _had_ to try.

Then, he saw the first flash of light. A spell fired off, bright enough to be seen from across the bay.

Elsewhere in the city, a fire sprung up.

Then, another.

Stilling, Sehun watched. Unable to help, to protect anyone, to do _anything at all,_ he watched as Kirkwall began to burn.

His fingers found the locket under his shirt. “Ma halani,” he whispered, needing to feel Jongin’s heartbeat, needing to know that for the moment, Jongin was safe.

Nothing happened.

Fear like nothing Sehun had ever felt gripped his heart, pouring down his throat and drowning him. “Ma halani,” he said again, squeezing the locket tight. “Please. Jongin. _Please._ ”

Still, there was no response.

Sehun repeated the command phrase again, and again, and again, and nothing happened.

There was nothing for the spell to connect to.

Jongin was gone.

Sobbing, Sehun sank to the floor of his cell, and mourned.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Jongin walked the halls of Corin’s Lookout, familiar and bright, more of a home to him than his family’s home had ever been. 

It was silent, but that didn’t bother Jongin much; he found it peaceful. The Lookout had tall, thin windows that let in bright streams of sunlight, reflecting off the white plaster walls. His footsteps echoed down the hall as he passed.

Soon enough, a second set of footsteps joined his. Jongin turned and smiled. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

His younger self smiled back shyly, brushing long hair from his face. Had he really looked so boyish at that age? “I wanted to say goodbye,” Ardor said.

Jongin offered his hand. Ardor, in the body of Jongin’s younger self, took it, and they started again down the hall.

Looking up at the white walls, Jongin sighed. “This isn’t how I planned to go,” he murmured. “But I always knew I was going to die young. Most mages do.”

Glancing at him, Ardor asked, “Do you have regrets?”

“Regrets?” Jongin laughed. “Yeah, of course I do. I only just found out what it felt like to be loved.”

Ardor squeezed his hand.

Exhaling, Jongin looked around. The entire hall was flooded with light, but at the end, it was so bright, he just had a feeling the end was on the other side. “Ardor?” he asked softly. “How much time do I have?”

The tears glimmering in Ardor’s eyes glowed green. “Not long,” it admitted. “I’m holding on to you as hard as I can, but - you’re slipping away.”

Right.

Right, then.

“When I go,” Jongin said quietly. “When I - when I die. Will I take you with me, or will you be free?”

“I’m not sure, I…” Ardor closed its eyes, and took both of Jongin’s hands, brow furrowed. “...I think I will return to the Fade, once you are gone.”

Jongin nodded. “Will you do something for me?” he asked, quietly. “You’re still close, I know the Veil is thin in Kirkwall, and especially where there has been blood magic recently. Tao - that blood mage - ” He stopped and caught his breath, pushing down a wave of panic. “Please. Save him. Please, Ardor, for me.”

When Ardor opened its eyes, Jongin’s eyes, they were solid, glowing green. “You aren’t afraid of your own death,” it said. “But you’re afraid of Tao’s.”

“Are you surprised?” Jongin asked, and smiled, despite himself. “I love him.”

I love him.

“You never told him that,” Ardor pointed out.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t think I realized.” Jongin bit his lip. “If you can… will you tell him for me? And tell Sehun I’m sorry. For leaving them, for causing so much trouble, for - Just tell them. Please.”

Ardor stared at him in silence, for a long moment.

“Oh,” it said, finally. “Oh, I… I understand now.”

Confused, Jongin cocked his head. “Ardor?”

“When we met, I felt drawn to you. I felt a purpose in you. I wanted to help you find it.” Slowly, Ardor shook its head. “I was wrong.”

The light in the hall was darkening. The walls were changing, from white plaster to chiseled grey stone.

“Ardor?” Jongin asked again, alarm creeping in.

Cupping Jongin’s cheek in one hand, Ardor smiled at him, fond and sad. “You found your purpose without my help,” it said. “You found a family, a place in the world, a cause. I thought I was meant to lead you to all of that, but - I didn’t help you do anything that you couldn’t have done on your own. You weren’t meant to learn from me, I was meant to learn from _you._ ”

Jongin covered Ardor’s hand with his own, feeling pain starting to return to his limbs, hearing far-off screaming. “I don’t understand.”

“It wasn’t _your_ purpose I was sensing,” Ardor said. “It was _mine._ ”

And then, in a horrible flash of understanding, Jongin realized what was happening.

“No,” he whispered. “No! No, Ardor, don’t do this - ”

Ardor _pulled_ on him, digging in claws made of purpose and yanking Jongin back through the Veil. Jongin smashed into his own body, blood and pain and the breath in his lungs expanding again from the point of collapse, like he hadn’t breathed in hours - 

_I love you, too,_ Ardor whispered. _Be strong, Jongin. Live your life for both of us._

Green light exploded through the room, blinding Jongin and everyone else.

And then it was over. Jongin was alive, and completely healed, magic singing through his body like an aria.

But inside his mind, Jongin was alone.

He didn’t have time to mourn, didn’t have time to even register what had happened. He’d been given another chance and he could not waste it. Stunned, numb, Jongin grabbed his staff and scrambled up to his feet.

“What the - ” The fancy-dressed man in the back of the room, who must have been Vanard, was staring like he’d seen a ghost. Tao, still mostly locked onto the table, whipped his head around to look where Vanard was looking, so quick that the tears on his face went flying, little drops of liquid twinkling in the morning sunlight. 

When he saw Jongin on his feet, his expression went from anguished, to confused, to stunned, in the space of less than a second.

No time to contemplate that Tao had been crying for him. No time to do anything but to raise his staff and _shout,_ pulling down an enormous bolt of lighting that ripped the roof open and struck the blood mage where he stood.

Without waiting for the dust to clear, Jongin leaped forward and freed Tao’s other hand, a small bolt of power that split the manacle open. “You’re alive,” Tao gasped, as he yanked his head free and attempted to sit up. “Jongin, _shit,_ I thought - _Look out!_ ”

Jongin whirled. The mage behind him was on his knees, one hand outstretched. Blood from the sacrificed woman was flowing through the air like a thing alive, swirling around him, healing his burns and forming a shield.

Cold fury filled him, and Jongin tried something he’d never attempted before. He cast the strongest Horror spell he knew, the one he’d always been terrified of even in _theory._

He cast with the intent to scare the man to death.

The blood mage froze in place instinctively, eyes wide. He cringed, then shook himself, and Jongin felt him pushing back against the spell, drawing on the blood’s power to fight Jongin’s influence.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jongin saw a flash of silks. Vanard was running. Jongin wanted to turn, to strike him down, but all his will was occupied with pressing down onto the blood mage.

A knife sprouted from Vanard’s back, seeming to grow from nowhere. Vanard fell, dead.

Jongin looked back over his shoulder, where Tao was still half-bound to the table, twisted round and holding himself up with shaking arms, having thrown the very knife the mage had used to cut him. He collapsed again almost immediately, bleeding sluggishly.

Fear for Tao made Jongin’s concentration falter. The mage pushed back against him, nearly breaking his control.

_Need help?_

The voice in Jongin’s head made him stutter, stumble. For a brief, awful second, he thought it was Ardor - but then he recognized the smug, oily quality of the tone.

_I can give you everything you need to destroy that man utterly,_ Hubris whispered. _Everything you need to make this city kneel at your feet. You want to save Tao, you want to free Sehun? I can hand them to you._

Images slid into his mind - Karras and Meredith dead, the rest of the Templars bowing to Jongin’s rule. Jongin in the robes of the First Enchanter, sitting on the Viscount’s throne, bringing peace and prosperity to the city for the first time in hundreds of years. Awe and worship in Tao’s eyes, pride and love in Sehun’s. 

_You’d never have to fear anything, ever again._

It would be… a wonderful thing, not to fear. Jongin had spent most of his life fighting against fear, what would it be like to never experience that again?

And all Jongin would have to do, would be to let the demon in.

“I don’t think so,” Jongin said, through gritted teeth. He thought of Ardor, and he blinked, and when his lashes lifted, he could see the flow of magic around him, a glitter that wasn’t quite there.

He grabbed hold of the power the mage was pulling from the dead woman’s blood, and he severed the connection.

No longer blocked, Jongin’s horror spell surged. Immediately, the mage _screamed,_ flailing backwards so wildly that he tripped and fell, and kept scrambling, terrified of something he couldn’t see, something that was only in his mind. “Help me!” he cried. “ _Help me!_ ”

_As you wish,_ Hubris murmured.

Too late, Jongin realized what he had accidentally wrought. He gasped and reached out, yanking his spell back, trying to remove the fear from the mage’s mind, but he was not fast enough.

Power surged around them, the Veil itself rippling and shifting like a thing alive. Pulled into the waking world through the blood and the magic in the room, Hubris appeared very briefly as a glowing humanoid shape of deep red, as if made from blood itself.

Hubris entered the blood mage’s body. Jongin could feel the possession, he could _see_ it. He felt the demon settle into the mage’s skin, felt it overwhelm, and then destroy, his mind. Everything that the blood mage had been was gone in an instant.

And then it burst from the mage’s skin.

Robes ripped to tatters as the mage’s flesh contorted, expanded, skin hardening from a deep Tevinter tan to greenish-black chitinous plating. Jongin stepped back, horrified, as the mage doubled in both height and width, hands growing enormous claws and long black horns sprouting from its forehead.

Hubris smiled at him, baring rows and rows of sharklike teeth. “You should have accepted my offer,” it rumbled, in a voice that shook the rafters.

Still backing away, Jongin’s hip hit the side of the table and he could go no further. He glanced down, and found Tao unconscious, hanging by bleeding ankles next to the servant woman who had been sacrificed. He was so still, breathing slowly, his pulse barely beating; only because Jongin still was holding the visualization spell could he tell that Tao was still alive.

If Jongin couldn’t save him soon, he would die.

Jongin screamed inside his mind for Ardor to help him, a complete instinct, nothing but a reflex. There was no answer, of course. Only the torn, ragged edges of the raw space inside his soul where Ardor had rooted, pressing up against the thin barrier of the Veil like a window with cracked glass.

The demon stepped forward, heavy enough to make the ground shake.

No more time to call for help. Jongin was on his own.

Lightning was always Jongin’s first instinct, the element that felt the most natural to him. But taking just one look at the demon’s armored skin, Jongin guessed that lightning was not going to have all that much effect on it. So instead, he pulled from the other element he’d studied within the Primal school. Pushing his hands out to the sides, Jongin called out to the stone tiles of the floor around him.

Tile, and the underlying stone and soil of the house’s cliffside foundation, ripped up from the floor and gathered in front of him, packing itself into a dense boulder. Jongin used the magic to whip the ball of rock across the room, smashing directly into the demon’s chest. The demon didn’t fall, but it slid, pushed backwards all the way across the room before the magic collapsed and the boulder disintegrated. It wasn’t much, but it gave Jongin a little space to catch his breath and _think._

The demon’s laugh shook Jongin’s lungs. “You dare to attack me?” it rumbled, starting forward again as if Jongin’s boulder had been no more than a pebble. “I am more than you can fathom, boy. I am pride with reason, I am strength without restraint. I am of the Maker’s first children, and you are _nothing._ ”

Torn between wanting to draw the demon away from Tao, and not wanting to leave Tao vulnerable, Jongin decided quickly to take the risk and started stepping to the side, moving away from the table and into an emptier part of the room, where he had more space to move.

Hubris responded by picking up a wooden chair and whipping it across the room. It was so fast that Jongin didn’t have the time to even shift his weight, let along dodge; the chair hit him square in the chest with enough force to send him flying.

Jongin hit the ground and skid, gasping like he’d been punched in the gut. His ribcage hurt awfully, sharp pain that made think he’d fractured his breastbone or maybe one of his ribs, and he was too stunned to move for a terrifyingly long moment.

“You are a mouse in a maze,” Hubris taunted. “Too low to see the traps. And I, a cat at play.” It raised a claw, casual and dismissive, and Jongin scrambled to get to his feet. Hubris was teasing him, toying with him; it wouldn’t last.

If the demon landed one real hit, one _singular_ hit, Jongin was dead. And then Tao would be dead, too. He couldn’t allow that - but how could he face something this powerful on his own?!

Caught up in his fear and frantic scrambling, Jongin didn’t feel the noose until it was nearly too late. Twisting, befouled magic rose in a ring around him. Jongin bolted, but the ring was too wide and he was too unsteady. The trap activated before he was entirely out, and he fell, his legs held immobile and squeezed tighter, _tighter,_ until he thought they would both break, until he screamed.

The demon only continued to laugh, slow and heavy footsteps bringing it closer and closer. It was taking its time, ambling across the room with a feral, foul grin.

“Goodbye, little mouse,” it rumbled, and lifted a great clawed arm over its head.

Gasping, Jongin crossed his arms over his head, dragging a swirl of stone and tile up and around him like a shield. The claw came down, and the impact sent a literal shockwave through the room, but Jongin’s hastily assembled rock armor held long enough to absorb the impact before it shattered, raining Jongin in gravel and tile shards. Frantically, Jongin shouted, and threw a lightning bolt up over his head and haphazardly into the demon.

The demon grunted, reacting as if it had no more than stubbed a toe, but its concentration was broken enough that the trap disintegrated. Jongin rolled, and then crawled, anything he could do to get away as fast as possible.

The room was larger than any living space Jongin had ever called his own, but it was far, far too small for this demon, Jongin, and Tao’s vulnerable body. There was nowhere to run, and Jongin would not leave the room while Tao was immobile. He needed to think, think, _think!_

“A mouse with fangs,” the demon snarled, as Jongin forced himself up to his feet. Now all of him ached, bruised and battered and possibly broken.

Meeting the demon’s eyes, Jongin raised his chin. He was too terrified to speak, but he was not going down without a fight.

Hubris started forward. Its gait was… less smooth, less casual than before. Was it favoring one leg?

Yes. It was. Jongin’s gaze lit briefly on the black mark on the demon’s thigh, a burn that seemed to have partially seared through the plating of its skin. He’d managed to wound it!

“I have let you scramble long enough, mage,” Hubris said, as Jongin glanced around. Lightning might work after all, but he needed strength, he needed _power._ Why didn’t he carry lyrium?! “This ends, _now._ ”

The blood. There was so much of it, a fresh sacrifice that hadn’t been used up, Jongin’s own blood, Tao’s, Vanard’s. But he needed time, time enough to gather all of that power and shape it - 

Jongin cast another Entropy spell. This one was minor, an easy spell he usually avoided using because he thought it cruel. A spell of torment - thousands of pinpricks all over the skin.

Laughing, the demon didn’t even slow down. “That is truly pathetic,” it said, but Jongin kept the spell going, holding it as he backed away. It was such a simple spell, one of the first he had learned, the spell that had made him realize he was suited to the Entropy school.

He’d hated it, then. Thought that it was a cruel joke, that all he was good at was pain and fear. Now, though, he held the spell with everything he had, focusing over and over on the tiny cracks in the demon’s plated armor that he could just see beginning to form.

Jongin backed around the edges of the room, staying as far away as possible, keeping that little spell going and going. He was hoping that he could make Hubris annoyed. Impatient.

He had an idea.

It eventually worked. “Your running is pointless,” Hubris snapped, and stopped still in the center of the room, pointing a claw in Jongin’s direction. Jongin felt the trap spell begin to cast.

Immediately, he dropped his spell of torment, and started to run. He knew that it was no use - the demon had anticipated it and cast the spell in such a way that Jongin couldn’t clear the perimeter in time. 

In the moment before the trap solidified, Jongin quickly cast a dispelling effect upon just himself, making a little pocket of safety around his body as the rest of the trap sprung. Forcing himself to go stiff and still, Jongin _screamed,_ as if he was being squeezed in a vise, as if he might pop.

“Hah! I have you,” the demon gloated, crossing the room with that threatening nonchalance once more in its gait. Jongin continued to scream, making himself shake, and internally groped around for the edges of the trap spell, for the way the magic was woven through the air and through the Fade, for the glittering threads he could still see in the corners of his eyes. “I hope you have said your goodbyes.”

It stepped too close. With a shout, Jongin grabbed onto the trap spell, pulled it up and inverted it. He cast it back out around Hubris like a net, yanking it tight.

Hubris stopped dead in its tracks, frozen. Jongin could feel that the trap was not strong enough; the pressure was cracking against the demon’s armored skin. He had seconds in which to act.

Jongin took a deep breath, and opened his magic. 

He pulled in _everything_ \- the blood on the floor, the blood from Vanard, the blood dripping from Tao’s wounds. He pulled in the power of the Fade he could still feel at the edges of his senses, left over from his connection to Ardor, and he gathered up every tiny drop of will and determination and strength inside himself.

The lightning bolt was made of pure magic more than electricity, and it came from Jongin’s soul rather than the sky. Jongin shouted, and everything he could gather, everything that he was made of, exploded from his body in a burst of purple so bright, it seared his eyes.

The entire room shook. The windows shattered, showering everything in stained glass. Jongin had to close his eyes against the light, the pattern of the lightning bolt still glowing on the inside of his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes, the demon was a burnt mass of flesh, plating cracked open all the way to the bone. Its evil face was frozen in an expression of shock.

Slowly, it disintegrated, until nothing was left but a large pile of greasy, stinking ash.

Jongin collapsed to his knees, drained beyond anything he’d ever felt before. The room was silent but for the tinkle of the last shards of glass falling, and the drip-drop of blood.

Tao’s blood.

Tao.

Fuck.

Jongin stumbled to his feet. So exhausted he could barely breathe, Jongin somehow was able to muster the strength to free Tao’s ankles, but did not have the strength to catch him as he slid limply to the floor. Dropping again to his knees, Jongin rummaged through his belt-pouch with clumsy, weak hands. He’d brought two minor potions with him, would it be enough? Was he too late?

He tipped the first potion carefully down Tao’s throat, and held his breath as Tao’s swallow reflex took too long to kick in. The worst of the cuts closed over, and Tao’s breath evened out, his pulse strengthening.

When he opened his eyes, Jongin literally collapsed in relief, slumping over onto Tao’s chest. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, I was so scared.”

Shaking hands wrapped around his back. “You’re alive,” Tao croaked. “I thought - ”

Turning his head, Jongin met Tao’s eyes. “I was,” he said. “I think I was dead. Ardor… Ardor sacrificed itself to bring me back. To heal me.”

Black, fatigue-bruised eyes widened. “Ardor is… gone?”

Jongin nodded. Now that the chaos was over, empty silence filled Jongin’s mind. The space in his consciousness where Ardor had sat for the last month felt like a void, a gaping hole that hurt if he tried to prod at it.

“Vanard?” Tao asked. “That mage, Marcus - where - “

“They’re both dead,” Jongin whispered, shying away from the painfully empty space inside his mind. “It’s done. It’s over. They won’t hurt anyone else, ever again.”

Curling closer, Tao buried his face in Jongin’s shoulder. “Good. Fuck, when you fell - ” He exhaled, trembling so badly it sounded like a stutter. “I love you. Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that again.”

Hunched over in a mess of blood and broken glass, Jongin pulled Tao closer, held him tighter. “I love you too,” he managed to get out, before he buried his face against Tao’s shoulder. “It’s so empty, Tao, it’s so lonely in here. How can I - it’s gone, _it’s gone._ ”

“Did Ardor… leave you?” Tao asked, hesitant.

The memory made nausea crawl up Jongin’s throat. He burrowed closer into Tao’s arms. “It burned its existence away,” he whispered, rocking in place. “It sacrificed everything it was, to bring me back.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Tao murmured, pulling him closer. “I’m so sorry.”

Shaking, Jongin clung to him, staring wide-eyed at the gore all around them, and tried desperately to wrap his mind around a world where Ardor was dead.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I made a couple of changes to the last few lines of Chapter 12 to make it clear that Ardor is dead, since there seemed to be some confusion over that in the comments. If you read the chapter the first day it was posted, you might want to go back and re-read just the very last bit._

 

Screaming and the far-off sounds of fighting eventually forced Jongin and Tao up off the floor. Both were still in pain and exhausted to the point of collapse, but they knew they couldn’t stay in the home of a recently-murdered noble. No one was going believe their story, so they could not stick around to be questioned.

They took the back way Jongin had found, an exit through a servant’s side door to the abandoned building where the cache was hidden, and then down a trapdoor into the Undercity passages. Moving as fast as they could manage when both of them were dead on their feet, they headed back towards Lowtown.

Their usual exit was close to the Lowtown market. They reached the surface and climbed out of the trap door, and that was when Jongin realized that something was really, _seriously_ wrong.

The market was abandoned, half-destroyed. Bodies littered the square. A couple of the corpses were civilians caught in the crossfire, but most of them - nearly _all_ of them - were mages or Templars.

“Tao!” They both looked up as Charade and Baekhyun picked their way across the sea of gore to get to them. “You’re okay! Jongin left a message saying you were missing, we’ve been looking for you two all morning.” Charade stopped, eyes widening. “Hey, whoa, you guys look like shit.”

“We feel like shit,” Tao said. “Thanks for noticing. What the fuck is going on, Charade?”

“Didn’t you hear the enormous explosion?” Baekhyun asked. “The Chantry was destroyed.”

Tao blinked in shock. Jongin frowned. “Come again?”

Baekhyun turned and pointed.

Sure enough, all the way up at the peak of the cliffside, a column of smoke was all that remained where the high spire of the Chantry had stood.

“Maker’s breath,” Jongin whispered. “What could have - what _happened?_ ”

“We don’t know,” Charade said grimly. “But if you ask me, I think _that_ might be a pretty big clue.” She jerked her thumb at one of the bodies in the corner.

Blond hair made Jongin’s heart stop for one second, but then he saw the traveler’s robes, the mantle trimmed in black feathers. The knife in his back.

“Anders,” Jongin muttered, kneeling next to him. Anders’s half-closed eyes stared unseeingly. What could possibly have happened, here?

He reached out towards the Veil, through the raw, gaping remnants of his broken connection to Ardor. He brushed it, very carefully, sending out a soft query.

Sure enough, he felt a presence briefly touch his mind.

Righteous fury, wordlessly violent, echoed in Jongin’s head. He saw the explosion, saw the horror and betrayal in Hawke’s eyes - felt the knife enter his spine.

Jongin quickly withdrew, his heart pounding. “Anders did it,” he said, the surety of that knowledge surprising even him. Justice had turned to Vengeance, and Anders had succumbed. “He blew up the Chantry with the intent to start a war.”

“Fuck.” Baekhyun came over next to him. “If there were Templars here, and they know for sure a mage destroyed the Chantry…” He turned, looking down towards the docks and out across the sea. “I have to get to the Gallows, _now._ ”

Not following his train of thought, Jongin got to his feet. “Baekhyun, what - ”

“They’ve been itching for an excuse to purge the Gallows for _years,_ Jongin,” Baekhyun said. “This is it. This is their excuse. That’s why there was a pitched battle in the streets.” He turned back to face the rest. “I bet you anything Meredith has called an annulment.”

Oh.

Oh _fuck._

“Andraste save us,” Jongin breathed. He didn’t want Baekhyun to be right, but - 

He looked. Flames were already sprouting from the Gallows battlements, flashes of light visible from the windows. Mages in battle.

“I’ll go with you,” he said immediately. 

“Jongin, you are literally completely tapped out,” Tao protested, wide-eyed. “You said so yourself, you don’t think you could cast another spell for a week.”

“Baekhyun is going because Yixing is in danger, I know, but _all_ of the mages are in danger.” Jongin met his eyes, willing him to understand. “And Sehun too, he’s imprisoned and unable to defend himself. I won’t stand by and wait to see who survives.” He rounded on Baekhyun. “You said once that you knew of a secret way into the Gallows,” he said. “Can you get me to the lyrium vault?” Baekhyun nodded. “Then I’ll grab a lyrium potion and be fine. I’m going, Tao, they will need all the help they can get.” He turned, and his expression softened. “You should go home. You’re still injured.”

“Like _hell_ I will. If you go, I go.” Surprised, Jongin stared at Tao, who met his eyes determinedly. Then, Tao grimaced, and looked apologetically to Charade. “Don’t suppose we could hit up one of your secret stashes on the way, though? Another potion would help a lot.”

A nod. “Yeah, there’s one on the way.”

“Tao…” Looking back to Jongin, Tao cocked an eyebrow, daring him to argue. Exhaling, Jongin nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Thank you.”

“Great,” Charade said. “Let’s go.” She turned and started off, a brisk pace just shy of running. Jongin, Tao and Baekhyun scrambled to catch up with her.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It seemed like an eternity, but was likely only a few minutes, before anything broke Sehun out of his despair. When it came, it was in the form of someone calling his name.

“Sehun. Sehun?”

Slowly, Sehun raised his head. Was that Jongin?

No. Of course it wasn’t. Forcing himself to his feet, Sehun wiped his face with the collar of his shirt, and came over to the door.

Yixing was on the other side, a key ring in his hand. “The Rite of Annulment has been invoked,” he said, emotionless. “I do not have magic anymore, but I do not believe that will matter to many Templars. I am in need of protection.”

Sehun stared at him. Yixing stared back, patiently waiting for a response.

So it was true. Guilty or innocent, all of Kirkwall’s mages were to be put to death.

Jongin was already… dead. Sehun didn’t know how; maybe it was an accident, maybe he’d gotten caught by Templars, maybe Ardor had finally taken him over. But he was dead, and he’d taken a goodly chunk of Sehun’s passion with him.

But not all of it.

After all, there were still hundreds of mages in the tower, most of whom were innocent. Wasn’t that the reason Sehun had stayed in the Order at all?

Slowly, Sehun nodded. “I will protect you,” he promised. “Get me out.”

Yixing unlocked the door. “I was not able to procure weapons for you. I would have been killed if I was seen carrying a sword.”

Right. It was as illegal for a Tranquil to carry a weapon in Kirkwall as it had been illegal for the elves of Denerim to carry weapons, and the parallels did not escape Sehun. Just as the raid on the alienage had been an unmitigated slaughter, so would the annulment of the Gallows. Bullies were always brave against those who couldn’t fight back. 

This time, though, Sehun was not going to arrive too late to stop them.

“Stay close,” Sehun said, and they started down the stairs.

Mages in the Gallows outnumbered Templars four to one, but so many of those mages were literal children, apprentices who had only the barest control over their magic. Very few of the mages had any kind of actual battle experience or any desire to fight, and _all_ of the Templars were trained specifically for mage-killing.

Despite the numbers disparity, it would be a massacre.

Sehun headed straight for the youngest apprentices’ dorms, knowing they would be the most vulnerable, the least able to defend themselves, and because they were high up in the tower, close to him. He had gone down not even an entire floor when he ran into trouble.

It was one of the girls he’d saved from the abomination, weeks ago. She had the skirts of her robes gathered in her hand, running up the stairs as fast as her little legs could take her, tearstained and terrified. The look on her face when she saw Sehun above her was heartbreaking - she froze, struck with the horrible certainty that he was going to kill her.

“Get behind me,” Sehun said. “I will protect you.”

She hesitated, clearly unsure of whether to believe him, but clanking footsteps on the stair made up her mind. She scrambled around him and cowered against Yixing’s side as Ser Verne came around the corner, sword drawn.

He hesitated when he saw Sehun. “The Rite of Annulment has been invoked,” he said, obviously thinking he just hadn’t heard. “Blood mages have infested the Gallows, and we must wipe them out.”

“Is that Karras speaking through your mouth, or are you just talking out of your ass?” Sehun wondered. Verne, who had never liked Sehun much, stiffened like an offended cat. That was fine; the sentiment went both ways. “Turn around now. You don’t get them without going through me.”

Verne’s expression twisted. “So they got to you, did they? You’re a brainwashed blood-mage puppet.”

The irony of a _Templar_ referring to Sehun as a brainwashed puppet did not elude him. “Move, Verne,” he said.

Verne beat his sword against his shield, a taunt. “Make me, dog-lord.”

The staircase was narrow. Verne was a fully-trained Templar Knight in full armor with sword and shield, on a double dose of lyrium. And Sehun was unarmed and unarmored, and hadn’t eaten or caught more than a few moments of restless sleep in close to an entire day.

But Sehun had always been surrounded by people who were better equipped, better trained, better armed.

He charged down the stairs. Verne of course presented his shield for a bash, intending to knock Sehun off his feet. Sehun knew he would, because that was how they were taught.

Instead of letting the bash connect, Sehun jumped up, using the railings and the walls to get height. He landed on Verne’s shield with both feet, knocking Verne prone with his entire weight. They slid down several stairs, Verne yelling bloody murder the entire way, likely unharmed because of his armor but stunned, bruised.

Sehun kicked Verne’s sword out of his hand. It clattered further down the stairs. The action knocked him enough off-balance that Verne was able to get a foot in his gut and throw him over his head, and Sehun curled, protecting the more breakable parts of his body from the impact when he hit the wall at the bend in the staircase.

He landed nearly on top of Verne’s sword, and immediately scooped it up, scrambling to his feet as Verne did the same. They both charged.

Templars were trained to use a shield as a weapon as much as a defense, and Verne was nothing if not by-the-book. Shield strikes were slow but heavy, murderously strong; Sehun needed to brace his free hand on the flat of the blade in order to block the shield, using the sword almost like a staff, because one hand was simply not strong enough.

In the end, Verne’s extensive training was his undoing. Sehun realized Verne had fallen into the pattern of one of the most well-worn, well-practiced Templar combat drills, and fell into it with him just long enough for muscle memory to take over.

Then, when the drill would have had him going to the right, Sehun went to the left. Unable to correct in time, Verne swung and didn’t connect, and was knocked off-balance for just long enough.

Sehun went in through the underarm, the same gap in the defenses that Tao liked so much. The sword ripped through the leather underlayer and pierced Verne to the center.

Verne fell, gasping and choking, as his lung filled with blood.

“Come on!” Sehun yelled. He ripped Verne’s shield from his hand and left him there. There was a chance Verne would survive if a healer found him in time; no sense in killing him if he didn’t have to.

Yixing guided the apprentice down the stairs, carefully stepping over Verne, and they bolted.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

As it turned out, the secret entrance to the Gallows was down in the Undercity, through one of the many sewer-entrance trapdoors. Except these sewers opened into an old cave system that ran underneath the bay, all the way across to the fortress. It was twisting, rocky, a little treacherous with disuse, but they ran it as fast as they could manage, and Tao thought it was probably at least as fast as taking the ferry across.

A long, narrow tunnel and a ladder at the end had them coming up in the lowest level of the Gallows, the corner of the hallway right next to the phylactery vault. When Baekhyun closed the trapdoor behind them, it completely disappeared into the flagstones, invisible.

“How do we get it open again?” Tao asked.

“It’s here,” Baekhyun said, showing him the trick stone in the floor, that lifted on a hidden hinge to reveal a metal ring. He pulled the ring, showing how it would unlatch and lift the hidden trapdoor. “Six flagstones down from the corner.”

“We should split up,” Jongin said, pushing his sweaty hair up and out of his face, his attention clearly on the sounds of fighting above. “Get as many mages down here and out as possible.” He glanced at Tao and Charade, who weren’t as familiar with the Gallows. “As a general rule, the lower-ranked a person is, the more stairs they are made to climb. Children are at the top.”

Tao nodded. “I’ll go high. I might be able to get them past the Templars without having to fight.”

“I’m heading to the Tranquil quarters,” Baekhyun said, to no one’s surprise. “The armory is on the way, maybe a little sabotage will give us an advantage?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, I’ll do that,” Charade said. “Lead the way.”

They left, and Tao looked to Jongin. “And you?”

Jongin met his eyes. “I’m staying on the lower levels,” he said. “If they have taken any prisoners, they’ll probably be in the offices or the dining hall. I’ll free them.”

That was more than a little bit terrifying, but Jongin looked determined. Tao pulled him close and kissed him hard. “Do not die,” he commanded. “Try not to take stupid risks. I do not want to have to be the one to tell Sehun you got yourself killed.”

A flash of a grim smile. “I’ll do my best,” Jongin promised. “Stay hidden as much as you can, Tao. If we lose track of each other, I’ll meet you back at home by sunset, okay?”

If they made it that long. “It’s a date,” he said.

Jongin kissed his forehead and took off running.

Tao followed behind him, slipping into the shadows and starting up the stairs. There were a _lot_ of stairs, and more than once he had to flatten himself into a corner as Templars passed him, but he managed to get up about halfway, and entered a dormitory hall labeled for the adolescent boys.

The moment he opened the door, he heard the fighting. A Templar knight was thrown through a door to crash into a wall at the end of the hallway; an abomination followed him out, intent on murder. At least one of the kids must have given in to fear and rage; Tao couldn’t even begin to blame them.

He ducked into the closest doorway and shed his shadows. “If there are any mages hiding here,” he said to the room at large, “come out. I’m here to get you out of here.”

It took a moment, but then a skinny lad shuffled out from under one of the beds, wide-eyed. “Really?” he asked, soft and suspicious.

Tao crouched and extended a hand to pull the boy to his feet. “Yeah. You can’t stay there forever, come on. There’s a secret way out.”

“Is everyone else dead?” the boy asked, standing. To Tao’s surprise, he realized he recognized him. It was the same little boy Jongin had led out of the burning Circle in Starkhaven; he looked to be about fifteen now. Poor kid.

“I don’t know. We should see if anyone else is alive. Will you help me find them?”

The kid squared his shoulders, terrified but resolute. Tao was reminded strongly of Jongin. “I’ll help,” he said.

Tao put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll keep us hidden. You lead the way.” He pulled the kid into the shadows with him.

The battle between the Templars and the abomination raged at the other end of the hall, while Tao and the Starkhaven boy silently slipped from room to room, looking for survivors. They found several bodies - crushed, run through, beheaded - but two more boys, both barely into their teens, they found alive.

“That’s all of us who were here,” the Starkhaven boy whispered. “The others are all either dead, or became abominations, or they weren’t in the dorms when this happened.”

From the sounds of the fight, the Templars almost had that abomination subdued, so Tao made the decision to herd the three boys he’d found down six flights of stairs to the sub-basement and show them how to get out. “Follow this all the way to the city,” he said, when they reached the trapdoor. “Stay hidden. We’ll try and find some older mages to come get you.”

The first boy caught his tunic as he turned. “I want to keep helping,” he said. “How can I help?”

Tao’s heart felt like it would burst. These poor, brave kids, they didn’t deserve this. “Stay just on the other side of the trapdoor,” he said. “Stay hidden. I’ll send more survivors down. The password is Starkhaven, okay?” The boy’s eyes widened. “You hear that, you open the trapdoor for them. Can you do that for me?” It would save him having to run up and down all of the stairs, just to show the mages how to find the trapdoor.

The boy nodded, resolute. Tao ruffled his hair. “Good man. Stay safe, okay? Don’t undo all my hard work by getting killed.”

He promised, and slid down the ladder, closing the trapdoor over him. Tao turned, cloaked himself in shadow, and forced himself to run down the hall and back up the stairs.

Adrenaline battled with exhaustion; his only sleep in the last day had been when he was forcibly knocked out for a few hours and his limbs were an achy mess after his unexpected swim and his hours-long walk along the coastline the night before. But Tao pushed through it, knowing that there were still innocents in the fortress that he might be able to save, knowing that those young boys were counting on him to send someone who could guide them out of the city, to help them survive and find somewhere to start over.

With that in mind, Tao went next for the young adult dormitory. Here, the mages were better trained, stronger, faster; here the carnage was more complete, bodies on the floor belonging to Templars as well as mages. Following the sounds of battle took him to a small parlor, where four young mages were desperately trying to hold off three Templar knights with shields and spells.

In other circumstances, Tao might have given the knights some warning, some chance to surrender. As far as he was concerned, though, they had forfeited that courtesy when they entered the bedrooms of children with the intent of murdering them.

Tao struck without warning, without mercy.

The first knight fell before any of them knew what had happened. Another fell when he turned his back on the mages, a spike of ice driven through his chest. The third managed to exchange just two blows with Tao before Tao slipped behind him and slit his throat.

He dropped out of the shadows, breathing hard. “Everyone alright?”

“Do we look alright?” one of the girls snapped, and Tao tried to hold back his laugh, but he wasn’t quite able to.

“That’s the spirit.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Straight down the stairs to the bottom floor. Go all the way to the end of the hall and call out the word ‘Starkhaven,’ alright?” They blinked at him, obviously caught off-guard. “Go! Keep that shield up and run!”

The girl who had spoken grabbed the hands of the two younger mages, and the elder boy raised his shield again. They went, keeping close to each other.

Rolling his shoulders out and cracking his neck, Tao took a deep breath, and went to repeat the process.

He found two more groups of kids, one that was in hiding and one that he had to rescue from Templars, and sent them both down the stairs, admonishing them to stick together, protect each other, don’t be reckless. He was working on his third group when he rounded a corner and nearly ran smack into Sehun.

“Creators’ _balls,_ ” Tao swore, dropping his shadows and heaving a breath. Sehun pulled up short, wide-eyed. “Shit, you scared me.”

“Tao? _Maker_ \- ” Sehun surged forward, yanking Tao into a tight embrace. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Helping.” Oh, Sehun felt _good,_ so warm and strong. Tao wanted to melt into his embrace and stay there for a week. The brief moment of stillness was making his exhaustion announce itself, and he had to fight to keep his limbs steady as he forced himself to pull away. “We came as soon as we realized what was going on.”

Sehun pulled back and looked him in the eye. “We?”

“Charade, Baekhyun, Jongin and me.”

Strong hands grabbed his shoulders so fast and hard, Tao’s eyes momentarily crossed. Fuck, he was _so_ tired. “Repeat that for me,” Sehun said urgently.

“Charade, Baekhyun, Jongin and me?”

“Jongin. Jongin is here? How long? When did you last see him, was it before - “

They were getting looks from the kids, both the ones behind Tao and the ones behind Sehun. Tao ignored that. “It was only about half a bell ago, we split up the moment we got here. Sehun, what - ”

“He was dead,” Sehun said. “I mean. I thought. I thought he was dead.” He put one hand over his sternum, where Tao knew his locket lay under his shirt.

How the fuck had he known? “He was,” Tao said softly. “Ardor saved him.”

Staring into his eyes, Sehun absorbed that, silent and shocked.

“...Where is he?” he finally asked. “Which way did he go?”

“He said he was going to the main halls to try to free prisoners - ” Sehun abruptly dropped Tao’s shoulders and pushed past him, heading for the stairs. “Sehun! What the hell are you doing?”

“I need to see him. I _need_ to.” Sehun stopped at the top of the stairs. “Can you - they still need help.” He nodded at the mages he had been protecting.

Right then. “I’ll get the rest out. Be careful, Sehun.” He bit his lip. “When this is over, come find us.”

For once, Sehun didn’t hesitate. “I will. They decided to execute me.” He raised an eyebrow. “No matter what happens, I won’t be a part of this Order anymore.”

That possibly should have been alarming, but Tao found himself only relieved. “Good. Don’t die in the meantime.”

Sehun saluted, and they parted ways.

It took a moment to get the rest of the mages to where they could safely leave. The Tranquil who had been traveling with Sehun, however, refused to follow them.

“They hate me as much as the knights do,” he said. “They see me as a monster. I will not be safe with them. If Sehun has abandoned me, then I have nowhere to go.” He said this without a lick of panic or guile, without any bitterness. Just a fact.

Tao squinted at him, suddenly realizing that his facial features, his Dalish tattoos, were familiar. “Are you Yixing?” he asked.

“I am, yes.” No surprise, no questioning how Tao had known.

Well. “Baekhyun is here in the fortress,” Tao said. “Wouldn’t he protect you?”

“He would. Do you know where he is?”

Glancing up, Tao did some mental calculations. He was pretty sure that he’d already swept all of the children’s dorms; he’d saved everyone he could from up there. “He said he was heading to the Tranquil quarters. Looking for you, probably.”

A nod of acceptance. “It is on the other side of the Gallows. Will you accompany me? I will be in danger if I attempt to go alone.”

Tao eyed Yixing up and down. He was very fit, in that lean, lithe way that most elves had. “Can you fight?”

“I can, if I have a staff.”

“Even without magic?”

“Yes. I was trained from a young age.”

He was Dalish, so that wasn’t surprising. “We’ll get you a staff, then. Lead the way.” Yixing nodded and turned, and Tao followed him, hurrying down the hallways.

Yixing led him across the battlements. A shortcut, he said, a quick way to get from one side of the fortress to the other. The morning had turned overcast and chilly, not unusual for Kirkwall this time of year, and this high up the wind whipped through Tao’s clothes.

_“MEREDITH!”_

The challenge was called up from far below, a deep, booming voice. Startled, Tao stopped, and leaned over the edge to look down into the courtyard.

Knight-Commander Meredith, along with an entire squadron of Templar knights, stood fanned out in a semicircle in the stone courtyard. Coming up the stairs and striding into the Gallows like some kind of avenging demon was Chanyeol Hawke, his hands glowing with magical flames and almost a dozen companions around him, all blood-splattered and armed to the teeth. 

“Shit,” Tao murmured, awed. “Well, at least that will keep all those knights busy for a while. Come on.”

He tugged Yixing along. They needed to take advantage of what little time they had left.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

As Jongin had suspected, there were a number of mages who had surrendered without a fight being held in the main dining hall. The templars guarding them were led by Ser Moira, which was almost a relief. Moira had been Ser Emeric’s protégé back in the day, before the old Lieutenant had been murdered. She was one of the good ones - probably the reason Agatha had gotten promoted, instead of her.

So Jongin came into the room with his hands up, making sure Moira saw him before any of the younger, twitchier knights. “Hey.”

Moira turned with sword drawn, and stopped, eyes wide. “Jongin? What the - ” She glanced around him, clearly thinking he must have been brought in by another knight, and looked real suspicious when she realized he was alone. “Are you turning yourself in?”

“Not exactly.” Jongin stopped, keeping his distance. “Moira, you should let them go. I can get them out of here, we can pretend I overpowered you to keep your record clean.”

Dark eyebrows raised. “Uh-huh. And why should I do that?”

“Because they’ll be killed if they stay,” Jongin said. Murmurs, and restless shifting, from both the assembled mages and the handful of knights. “Come on, you’re not stupid, I know you’re not. Mages don’t get to surrender peacefully in an annulment. When the smoke clears, everyone here will be executed.”

Moira took a step forward. “Stop that!” She glanced over her shoulder at the wide-eyed mages, many of whom were very old or very young. “Don’t listen, he’s just trying to sow discord.”

Swallowing his frustration, Jongin kept calm. “I’m really not. Think about it, Moira.” He glanced at one of the elder mages, a shrewd woman who taught the advanced healer’s classes. “The act of terrorism wasn’t committed by one of the Circle mages. It was an apostate, not even a native Kirkwaller.” He looked back to Moira again, gauging her reaction. “And I’d bet you anything that Meredith knows that, and invoked the Rite anyway. Even if she doesn’t know it, that means she invoked the Rite without proof that a Circle mage did it - what does that tell you?”

Moira was silent, eyes narrowing.

“She wants to kill us all,” Jongin said softly. “And she doesn’t care how many of her own knights are killed in the process, either. All she needed was an excuse.” Come on, he begged her silently. See reason.

Glancing over her shoulder, Moira looked to the eldest mage. “Would you leave town,” she asked, “if we let you?”

“ _Moira!_ ” one of the other knights exclaimed.

“He’s making sense,” she said, rounding on her comrade. “Meredith’s been acting erratic, you can’t have missed it. What if he’s right?” She looked the mages over again, taking in their terrified expressions. “They all are putting their trust in us by surrendering. I don’t _want_ to believe Meredith would betray that trust, but…”

The other knight shut up, pursing his lips in a flat line.

“If you would let us go,” the eldest mage said, “I will take these children and find somewhere safe. We will never harm anyone.”

That seemed to be the assurance Moira needed. “Anyone want to fight me on this?” she asked her squadron. They exchanged glances, but no one stepped forward. “Good. I know the secret way out, Jongin, I’ll see that they escape myself.”

Now _that_ caught Jongin off guard. “You do?”

She flashed him a wry grin. “Thrask was my patrol partner, remember? He wasn’t nearly as subtle as he liked to think he was.” She gestured to two of her three squadmates. “You two stay here, protect any other mages who attempt to surrender. We’ll be back.” She jerked her head at the third knight, and they started off, herding the mages with them.

When they were gone, one of the two remaining knights turned to Jongin. “Meredith said you were maleficar,” he said. “Is it true?”

There was a time the question would have given Jongin pause. After all, he’d used blood magic to kill a demon, just a few hours before. “No,” he said. Because Marcus had shown him what a maleficar _really_ looked like, and it was more than just using the power available in a time of desperation. Much more.

The knight seemed to take his word for it. “If you find others,” he said, “send them here.”

“I will. Thank you.” Jongin bowed his head, and turned to head up to the officers’ quarters.

He was thinking that if any of the officers had captured more mages, this was where they would be held; but it seemed that unlike with his previous hunch, this one was not correct. The entire hallway was empty, all the offices abandoned. No mages had risked hiding here, and no officers were waiting here. There was nothing.

Planning to head up the stairs and try to help out any mages who might be barricaded in the libraries above, Jongin turned back.

A rough hand grabbed him by the wrist, shoving him harshly face-first into the wall. Jongin cried out in pain and surprise, his staff bashed from his hand to clatter to the floor.

“There you are,” Karras breathed in his ear.

Jongin froze for one long, horrible second, panic screaming through his mind. It was one second too long. Karras twisted his arms behind his back and slapped iron cuffs around them, cold and unforgiving.

Icey fog wrapped around Jongin’s hands, crawling up his wrists and into his center, and Jongin’s eyes widened with terror as he felt all his remaining magic draining away. He reached for it, desperately grasping for even the tiniest spell, a flame, a lightning bolt, _anything_ \- 

It was no use. His magic was blocked off entirely.

Karras forced him to turn, and shoved him to his knees. “You cut your hair,” he said, as meaty, calloused fingers curled between the strands and grabbed hold. “It’s very pretty.”

“Don’t _touch_ me,” Jongin spat, but it came out too shaky to hold any weight. Maker, no, _no_ -

His head was yanked roughly back. “You’ve lost all that sweetness, haven’t you?” Karras asked. “Gentle, giving Jongin, always so willing. Now you’ve been spoiled.” Jongin snarled at him wordlessly - he was never _willing,_ just _terrified._ “Pity. I thought you might come quietly, but we can do this the hard way if that’s what you want.” He grinned, baring all his teeth, and pulled something from his belt pouch. “As a matter of fact, I was counting on it.”

Ar first, Jongin thought that the thing in Karras’s hand was a seal stamp, the kind used to seal letters with wax. Then he realized it was too big, that it was made of dark red bloodstone, the end fitted with bright, blue-white carved crystal.

Shoving his body forward so that Jongin was pinned to the wall, Karras spoke one word, a word Jongin had never heard before, in a language he didn’t know. The end of the seal flared to life, glowing brilliant blue, and a high, buzzing song scratched its way through Jongin’s ears.

That was when Jongin saw the sunburst carved into the end, and he realized what it was.

It was a Tranquil brand, carved from pure lyrium.

Jongin _screamed._ Screamed like he had never screamed before, higher and louder and more desperate than the song of the lyrium in his mind, and he fought, he fought _wildly,_ throwing himself as hard as he could against Karras’s grip. Desperately, he tried to get his feet under him to kick out, to shove Karras away with his shoulders, to break through the magic binding him, anything, _anything,_ Andraste _help me_ \- 

There was a rush, a blur, and Karras’s grip was gone. Sobbing, hyperventilating, Jongin scrambled away, forcing himself to his feet. His arms were bleeding, scraped up from the stones, but he was alive, he was still _himself._

A body went flying through the air, crashing directly into Jongin and knocking them both back into the wall. Spreading his stance, Jongin shoved with his shoulders, getting them both back upright.

Sehun.

Jongin had never in his _life_ been so delighted to see someone, and that ranked up there with Tao opening his eyes that morning after an agonizing eternity of thinking he had gotten to him too late.

At the other end of the hall, Karras rolled to his feet and drew his sword. Sehun, unarmored but carrying a likely stolen sword and shield, spared Jongin a quick glance to make sure he was okay before he charged, not waiting for Karras to move first.

The lack of armor made Sehun quick, much quicker than he normally was, but Karras was so flushed with lyrium that it barely seemed to matter. Karras was already in a defensive stance by the time Sehun reached him, and the two clashed hard, the sound of steel on steel echoing in the empty hall.

Even with the full weight of Sehun's rush hitting him, Karras was barely affected, his sword swinging down almost immediately. Sehun got his shield up in time to take the brunt of the attack, but even from across the hall, Jongin could see his arm shudder under the onslaught. Bending his knees, Sehun used all of his body weight to heave Karras away, causing the Templar to stumble back and putting a much-needed few paces between them. It was enough to give Sehun the space to dart forward, sword swinging down in an arc towards Karras's neck. 

Karras dodged so fast, Jongin could barely see it. The sword struck nothing but air, but Sehun was already twisting his body to come back around with another attack.

Swatting Sehun's attack away like a fly, Karras snarled, and immediately went on the offensive. He strode forward, swinging his sword down at Sehun with a speed that should have been impossible, given the heavy plate the Templar was wearing. Sehun's shield was battered again and again, and each time, his arm gave a little more than before.

Jongin whimpered and looked around, desperate to do something, _anything._ The branded manacles left him magicless, and there was no way for him to affect the fight from a distance. Getting in close was not an option - he was not nearly fast enough to stay out of the reach of the swords, and likely all he would do would be distract Sehun and probably get them both killed. But at this rate, Karras was going to wear Sehun down in a matter of minutes.

Sweet Maker, if he didn't think of something, Sehun was going to die.

He pulled his chained wrists to the side, twisting to look over his shoulder. They were Qunari mage-neutering cuffs, the kind that the Qunari used on their own mages, runes inlaid in the metal to drain magic away. Had Karras taken them back during the Qunari uprising, kept them all this time? Evil _bastard._

Jongin’s eyes lit on the Tranquil brand, fallen to the floor a few paces away. The end was still lit up, hissing and buzzing with the raw, uncontrolled power of the lyrium.

Quickly, Jongin stepped over the brand and knelt. It took some work to find the non-dangerous end and grab it with his cuffed hand, and even more work to get it twisted around without being able to see so he could press the lyrium end against the pattern of the runes on one of his cuffs. The song turned to a shriek, sparks flying and singeing his skin, but Jongin held on gamely, gritting his teeth.

Karras's sword slashed down, and Sehun wasn't fast enough to get out of the way. A bright red line split the shoulder of Sehun's tunic, shearing through his skin. Jongin cried out, but it was drowned out by Sehun's own scream - not of pain, but of power; possibly the last dredges he had. A blast of force erupted out from where Sehun stood, a smite that would normally send everything nearby flying. It was an attempt to knock Karras back, to give Sehun some kind of advantage.

It didn’t work.

Karras stayed on his feet, barely affected by the attack. With one last angry roar, he slammed his sword against Sehun's shield, and Sehun's wounded arm finally gave. The shield dropped, leaving Sehun’s defenses wide open. Karras swung out brutally with his own shield, hitting Sehun square in the chest and sending him flying. Sehun hit the ground hard, stunned by the impact. As he struggled to catch his breath, Karras advanced on him, flipping his sword in his hand and raising it, intent on running Sehun through.

The lyrium brand screeched, and Jongin felt the enchantment holding his magic back fall away. He’d burned through the runes.

Karras’s back was turned, focusing on Sehun. Jongin inhaled deeply, and exhaled hard, and with his breath he released _years_ of terror and revulsion in a wave aimed directly at Karras.

Every time his heart had stopped when there was a knock on his door. Every bruised knee, split lip, sore scalp from rough hands fisting in his hair. Every threat, every nightmare, every time a cock he hadn’t wanted was forced down his throat, he balled all of that up and forced it into Karras’s mind, fury and anguish and revenge giving him strength to shatter the man’s mental defenses and make him _feel_ what he had done to Jongin.

Karras stopped moving. He tried to turn, but Jongin forced him to stand still, sending him the frigid fear he’d felt in Lirene’s basement when he’d heard Karras’s voice, the terror of running from him in the Alienage.

It was all the opening Sehun needed. 

Rolling up to his knees, Sehun shouted and thrust upwards with everything he had left. His sword went right through Karras’s neck, bursting through the back of his skull.

Everything stopped. The brand clattered to the stone, as Karras shuddered, blood flowing like a river, coating his armor back and front. Openmouthed and bulge-eyed, Karras managed to turn his gaze to Jongin, an expression of silent, horrified panic. Then, his body went limp, collapsing.

Stumbling to his feet, Jongin slammed his heel down on the brand, shattering the lyrium and ending the horrible song.

Sehun dropped his sword and shield, and collapsed against the wall. “Are you alright?” he asked, fervent despite his exhaustion. “I should have let you kill him, sorry, you had him at your mercy, but I just didn’t want to risk him breaking free -”

“It’s okay,” Jongin whispered, skirting around the body and dropping to his knees, nearly in Sehun’s lap. He pushed himself desperately into Sehun’s arms. “He’s gone now, that’s all that matters.” And the last thing he had felt was all of the terror he himself had caused, and for Jongin, that was more than enough revenge. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, ever again.

Hauling him close, Sehun buried his face in Jongin’s neck, and Jongin, unable to return the embrace with his hands still bound, let his weight sag against Sehun. His mind was filled with fog, overwhelmed by how horrifyingly _close_ that had been. Escaping destruction three times in one day was three times more than Jongin ever wanted to experience, ever again.

But Sehun was here.

Jongin kissed Sehun with every bit of passion he could dredge up. They were, for the moment, safe, and they were together.

Nothing else mattered.

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

Familiar voices made Tao tug Yixing into a detour. “What’s down that way?”

“The libraries.” Yixing paused, listening. “That is Baekhyun’s voice.”

Tao had only gotten as far as ‘that voice sounds vaguely familiar,’ but of course Yixing would know Baekhyun’s voice, even from this distance. “Okay. Stay close.”

In the libraries, they found a stalemate - a dozen mages huddled together behind an enormous magical shield, and half a dozen Templars with swords drawn. In between were Baekhyun and Charade, both with weapons drawn, loudly arguing with the leader of the Templar squad. “We don’t want to kill you,” Charade was saying, “but we _will_ if you try to harm them. You’re way outnumbered here.”

“Templars are _always_ outnumbered,” the leader of the knights retorted. “Doesn’t stop us.”

There was a couple of bodies on the floor near the door, mages who had not survived the initial skirmish. Tao scooped up one of the staves, a sturdy wood one capped and inlaid with steel, and handed it to Yixing silently. “Now you’re outnumbered _and_ surrounded,” he said conversationally, as he drew his two longest daggers. Next to him, Yixing dropped into a fighting stance, expressionless. “Might want to rethink that strategy, there.”

Charade grinned at him over her drawn bowstring. Baekhyun said, “See? Don’t be stupid. Just walk away, that’s all you have to do.” 

The knight spat on the floor. “You’ve abandoned your vows, but we will not!”

“I never actually _took_ any vows,” Baekhyun said, rolling his eyes. His tone was flippant, but his body was tense. “But the purpose of a Templar is to protect, isn’t it? Seems to me I’m doing _your_ job.”

“Alright,” a new voice said, “everyone shut up and calm down.”

Tao turned. A Templar woman was coming through the door behind them, her sword sheathed and shield hung on her back, out of the way.

The knight frowned. “Ser Moira?”

“It’s over. The Rite of Annulment has been, in and of itself, made annul.” She raised an eyebrow. “Cullen and all the remaining senior knights are out in the courtyard, standing _against_ Meredith.”

Murmuring chaos erupted as everyone gasped, expressed surprise, turned to see each other’s reactions. “Ser Cullen would never turn against his commanding officer,” the lead knight protested.

“In point of fact, he would, if he had reason to believe that officer was no longer fit for their post,” Yixing pointed out, so plain and reasonable that it gave all the other knights pause, glancing at each other. After all, the Tranquil no longer had any reason to speak anything but logic. “The Code of the Order gives the Knight-Captain the power to relieve the Knight-Commander of duty in the event that the Knight-Commander becomes compromised. Is that not so?”

Moira nodded. “Thank you, Yixing. Yes, that’s exactly what happened, and the knights followed _him,_ not her, because unlike Meredith, Cullen is not a raving _maniac._ ” She took in the squadron’s disbelieving faces. “What? If you don’t believe me, come with me, and I’ll show you proof.” She gestured to the door.

Warily, the knights followed her out. Tao and Yixing let them pass, keeping guard up until the door to the library swung shut behind them.

The mage in the center, who had been holding the shield up, collapsed to his knees. “Oh, thank the Maker,” he said. “I wasn’t going to be able to hold that much longer.”

“You did great, Alain,” Baekhyun said, but his eyes were locked onto Yixing, his feet already carrying him across the room. “Xing. Hey. I’m so glad you’re safe. I’ve been looking for you.”

Yixing let his new staff rest on the ground like a walking stick, straightening and relaxing. “Baekhyun. I plan to leave the Gallows. I am in need of protection.”

The hope that lit Baekhyun’s eyes was like a needle in Tao’s heart. “Yeah? You want to leave?”

“I know that many Templars would see me as a threat, even if I am not one. This place is no longer safe for me. I will find somewhere else to be. Somewhere that I may be useful.” 

Tao had already grown accustomed to Yixing’s frank monotone, having never known the man without it, but Baekhyun still clearly found it unsettling. Despite that, he squared his shoulders and met Yixing’s eyes. “You are welcome to come with me,” he said. “You will always be welcome to come with me.”

Nodding, Yixing said, “Then I will go with you. I believe that you will protect me.” He glanced back at the door. “We should leave before they come back. Even if Moira was telling the truth, it is possible that not all of them will accept this new state of affairs.”

Fingers trembling, Baekhyun lifted a hand, as if to touch him. When Yixing didn’t move, Baekhyun gently pushed a stray lock of hair away from Yixing’s face. Yixing did not react. “You’re right. We’ll leave now.” He glanced behind himself, at the mages. “You all coming?”

“Andraste, _yes,_ ” Alain said. “If I never see Kirkwall again, it will be too soon.” He turned, helping the mages to get their things together, get ready to leave.

Charade came over and stuck her hand out. “It was a pleasure working with you, even if just for a couple of weeks,” she said. Baekhyun clasped her hand warmly. “Keep your eyes out for red. You’ll find Friends in a lot of places.”

“I will, thank you.” Baekhyun turned to Tao. “I wish I could wait for Sehun and Jongin,” he said, “but I shouldn’t. Tell them goodbye for me?”

Tao promised, and shook Baekhyun’s hand as well. Herding Alain and all the other mages with them, Baekhyun and Yixing walked out of the library, leaving Tao and Charade alone.

“Dang,” Charade murmured. “I’m gonna miss that kid.” She glanced at Tao. “I think most of the surviving mages are out. I think we did it.”

Nodding, Tao looped his arm through hers. “Let’s go make sure.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

It took a long few minutes for Sehun and Jongin to pry themselves apart and drag themselves up off the floor, and another long minute for Sehun to search Karras’s corpse for the keys to Jongin’s manacles and free him. By the time they did so, the Gallows was much quieter, indicating that whatever the outcome, most of the battle was over.

Knowing full well that neither one of them was coming back to the Gallows once they left, they took a quick detour to Sehun’s room, where Sehun packed a bag - clothes, supplies, and a couple of mementos - and quickly armored himself. He chose the armor he’d been using to sneak out, the chain and leather plate, rather than his full Templar plate armor. “I’m never wearing that insignia again,” he said, as he picked up his sword and an unmarked practice shield.

They went next to the supply rooms, and Jongin dug through the confiscation chests until he found a few things of his own that he’d left behind when he ran - his handwritten spellbook, old letters from his sisters, a few other personal items. There wasn’t much, but he seemed much happier for having found even these few things that tied him to his past, and Sehun couldn’t blame him for it. Starting over was hard enough, without having your entire history erased in the process.

The Gallows halls were empty now. All of the dorms were silent, both Templar and mage, and though bodies were scattered through the halls, there weren’t nearly as many as Sehun would have feared. He hoped that meant many of the mages had escaped.

Which meant it was probably time for them to leave, as well.

Crossing the second-level battlements to return to the side of the Gallows where the secret exit was, Jongin and Sehun finally ran into someone living - Tao and Charade, with a small knot of Templar knights, all leaning over the battlements to watch the courtyard below. Exchanging glances, Sehun and Jongin joined them.

“What are we looking at?” Sehun said, as Jongin wormed his way under Tao’s arm and hugged him tightly.

No one answered him. No one had to. Below, Sehun saw a circle of Templars, all of them senior knights, with Cullen among them. Inside the circle was Chanyeol Hawke, bloodied and glowing with residual magic, and almost a dozen companions, including his brother and his dog, equally bloody.

And at the foot of the stairs was Meredith. Kneeling, frozen, her mouth open in a silent scream, red crystal devouring her body.

“Maker have mercy,” Jongin murmured. “What… what _happened?_ ”

“Her sword was made of pure lyrium,” Tao said quietly, as Cullen gestured, and one of the knights gingerly came forward to inspect Meredith’s body. “She tried to call too much power from it, and it shattered and consumed her.”

“Poetic, if you ask me,” Charade added.

Chanyeol was guarded, obviously waiting for Cullen to turn on him, to order the knights to take him and his friends into custody. All his friends were backing up to get closer to him, to defend him; daring any of the Templars to try it.

The knight who had been inspecting Meredith looked to Cullen, and shook her head. Everyone in the courtyard held their breath.

Cullen sheathed his sword, crossed his arms over his chest, and bowed to Chanyeol, a Fereldan salute.

Nodding back, Chanyeol turned and walked out of the Gallows, his companions at his side. Cullen put out a hand, staying the few knights who made a move to try to stop them.

Sehun sagged against the parapet, relieved. “So it’s over,” he said. “It’s completely over.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Charade said. “If I was Hawke I’d be on my way to flee the city. No one is going to believe Meredith accidentally killed herself, not when such a famously powerful mage was right there.” She tugged on Tao’s arm, gesturing. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

They headed down the stairs. At the ground floor landing, Charade, Tao and Jongin made to keep going, but Sehun stopped them. “Wait,” he said. “I need to - ” He quickly pushed the door open and headed towards the entrance hall.

Cullen and the rest of the knights were just returning, coming into the building. They were injured, bloodied, obviously exhausted, but a little energy returned to Cullen’s expression when he saw Sehun.

“I’m relieved to see you alive,” he said, coming over to them. He nodded to the others, who had followed behind Sehun. “Jongin. And Serah Charade, good to see you again.”

That caught Sehun off-guard. “You know each other?”

Charade flashed a grin. “I know everyone.”

Leaning against a nearby wall, Cullen dropped his head into his hands and pushed them up, tugging tiredly on his hair. “Maker, what an awful day,” he mumbled.

“So you’re Knight-Commander, now?” Sehun asked. “I don’t envy you that.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Cullen told him. “Meredith, Elthina and Orsino are all dead, which means I am now the highest remaining authority in Kirkwall.” Tired amber eyes met Sehun’s. “I’m not looking forward to the moment the nobles realize that.”

Sehun bit his lip. “I was planning to leave,” he said softly. “Do you… do you need me to stay?”

Tao’s hand touched his waist, and Jongin wove fingers between his own. They both remained silent.

Cullen shook his head. “I appreciate it,” he said, “but you should leave. Now. And take Jongin with you.” Surprise must have shown on Sehun’s face, because Cullen said, “Meredith sent away for the Rite of Annulment a week ago. She decided to inform me of that earlier this morning, far too late for me to do anything about it. But it means the Knight-Vigilant is already on his way, likely bringing an entire company of Templars with him. He’ll be here in only a few days.” He straightened up. “I have no way of knowing if I will be allowed to remain in command. I have no way of knowing if he will decide to honor Meredith’s declaration, but considering Meredith’s gruesome and clearly magical death and the... the _carnage_ that Orsino wrought, I suspect he will not be merciful.”

His eyes slid over Sehun’s shoulder to meet Jongin’s.

“Every mage in Kirkwall should run. _Now._ ”

Shaky, Sehun exhaled. Jongin squeezed his hand.

“Alright,” Sehun said. “Then we will run. Cullen… thank you.”

Cullen clapped his shoulder, squeezing a little. “The repository was opened at the beginning of the fight. Go, take as much as you can carry. Please be careful out there.” He smiled, crooked. “I’ll miss you.”

Maker. Sehun yanked Cullen into an embrace, quick and tight. “Don’t let the Knight-Vigilant walk all over you,” Sehun said gruffly.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Cullen said, determined. “I won’t be making that mistake again.”

Dragging himself away, Sehun gave his commanding officer one more salute.

They left.

Down in the sub-basement, Sehun packed up all the lyrium he could carry. A year’s supply, if he was careful with it, if he forced himself back down to one dose a week. It would hurt for a while, but he’d get used to it again, and it would give him enough time to secure another supply.

They left the Gallows through the passage, and Sehun spared only a quick thought for how annoying it was that he had missed the trick brick when he was looking for the passage the first time. Crossing under the bay was tiring, and they made the trip mostly in silence, helping each other over rocks where necessary.

Exiting into the Undercity, Sehun took a deep breath. “Okay. Now what?”

“There you are. I thought I might catch you here.”

They looked up, and found Chanyeol striding through the claustrophobic passages. He was alone now, except for Monster, who trotted obediently at his side.

“Hawke!” Charade pushed in front of them, and embraced Chanyeol quickly. “We saw some of what happened. Cullen said the Knight-Vigilant will be here in a few days, what are you going to do?”

“I’m leaving,” Chanyeol said. “I fear that if I stay in Kirkwall I’ll bring an entire Exalted March down on the city, so I’m going into hiding. That’s why I was looking for you.” He reached into his armor and pulled out a chain, with a key hanging from it. “Your father fled when the fighting started, so you’re the last family I have left in Kirkwall. The estate is yours.”

Shocked, Charade accepted the key. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I know you’ll make good use of it.” Chanyeol looked to the rest of them. “Justice corrupted Anders, in the end,” he said, and, what? Sehun glanced at Tao, who looked just as confused. Jongin seemed to know what he was talking about, though. “Don’t let that happen to you.”

Jongin shook his head. “It’s no longer an issue,” he murmured. “Ardor is gone.”

Sehun gaped. In all of the craziness, he hadn’t even asked - he hadn’t realized - 

Jongin was free?

Jongin was _free._

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Chanyeol said solemnly, “but I think that might be better for you, in the long run.” He bowed to them. “I probably won’t see you again. Good luck.”

And just like that, he was gone, too, with his dog close at his heel. They saw Fenris meet him at the end of the tunnel, just before they all turned the corner and disappeared.

“I’m getting really sick of goodbyes,” Jongin muttered.

“Well, you’ve got one more,” Charade said, with a wry smile. “Sorry.”

Tao’s brow compressed. “Charade…”

She waved him off, flashing a smile that was only a little watery around the edges. “Don’t. I’m expecting you to write to me, alright? We’ll see each other again.” She exhaled. “You know… there’s no Circle in Starkhaven.”

Tao, Sehun and Jongin exchanged glances. “What?”

“I’m just saying. There’s no circle in Starkhaven, no Templars, not anymore. And hey, you know what else? There’s no Red Jenny in Starkhaven.” She winked at Tao. “Maybe they could use one.”

Tao opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking thoughtful.

Charade laughed. “Write to me, boys,” she said. “I want to hear all about your adventures.” She hugged Tao, clasped Jongin’s hands in her own, bowed to Sehun, and left, going the opposite way from Chanyeol.

Jongin took Sehun and Tao’s hands. “You’re not leaving me, right?” he asked. “I don’t think I could take it.”

“No, of course not,” Sehun said firmly, as Tao pulled Jongin into his side and kissed his hair. “We stick together.” He worried at his bottom lip, thoughtful. “So, what do you think? Starkhaven?”

Tao nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

The trip to Starkhaven took two full weeks.

There was no getting around it. Wary of leaving too much of a trail, not knowing whether anyone might be following them, they’d decided to go on foot, taking only what they could carry or drag in a small hand-cart that Tao had managed to steal. It was slow going, north over a rocky pass through the Vimmark Mountains and then east through thick forests, following footpaths and roads where they existed and navigating via compass and the sun where they did not.

The first night, stress and sadness caught up to Jongin, and he sobbed himself to sleep between Sehun and Tao, mourning for Ardor, for the lives lost, for having to give up his home yet again.

A few nights later, Tao and Jongin held Sehun between them as the withdrawal began to kick in, as he forced himself to go as long as possible before he took one of his preciously limited lyrium doses.

A few nights after that, Tao woke up screaming, and Sehun and Jongin automatically wrapped him up in their arms as he finally cried for what he had lost, for what he had nearly lost, whips and knives and the sight of Jongin falling haunting him.

It was a long journey, but they made it, eventually. The sight of Starkhaven’s familiar grey walls, of the long bridge that led up to the city gates over the rushing river, made Jongin feel for the first time that maybe, just maybe, they were going to be okay.

“Wow,” Tao said, as Sehun nodded agreement. “It’s… it’s really beautiful.”

“I guess this is home, now, isn’t it?” Sehun said.

“Yeah.” Jongin took both of their hands. “Let’s go make it our home.”

 

 

**_finis_ **

 

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X  
X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X  
X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

For three years after they ran from Kirkwall, Baekhyun and Yixing travelled, as the structure of the world they had known slowly began to crumble around them.

They heard it in bits and pieces, news from travellers they met on the road and innkeepers where they stayed for a night. Circles across Thedas rebelling against their Templar guardians in protest against what Meredith had done. Templars tightening restrictions, putting down revolts, becoming more and more extreme in their practices in a possibly futile attempt to regain control.

Two years passed before the continent-wide College of Magi voted for independence by a very slim margin, effectively splitting the mages down the center and completely dissolving the Circles. Soon after, the Templar Order broke from Chantry control and became an organization unto themselves, resolved to bring the mages back to heel.

Before long, the majority of the known world was on the brink of magical war.

Through all this, Baekhyun and Yixing travelled. Yixing grew his hair out to hide his brand, and Baekhyun adopted a dirtier, more brutal fighting style so people would stop recognizing him as having been Templar-trained. They made enough money to live on through mercenary work and selling Yixing’s potions, and occasionally by picking up a job through the Friends of Red Jenny, when they were in a city that had one.

They travelled, and Baekhyun searched for something, anything, that might lead to a cure.

Over time, Baekhyun almost became used to Yixing’s complete lack of emotion. He eased his worry that Yixing would find it logical to leave him behind by making himself Yixing’s protector, invaluable in a world that no longer had anywhere safe for a Tranquil to go. Yixing didn’t love him, _couldn’t_ love him, but he trusted Baekhyun and he relied on him, which was… not nearly as good, but it was something. Some days, it was almost comfortable, almost nice.

And some days, Yixing would speak of his history with his clan without pride, without love, as if it had happened to someone else. Some days, he would respond with mild confusion to something Baekhyun said, something that he would have intuitively understood before.

Some days, Baekhyun would tell Yixing he loved him, and Yixing would nod, and say, “I know.” And Baekhyun would mourn, all over again.

Three years, they travelled, from Rivain to the Anderfels, from the western reaches to the Korcari Wilds and back again. They went to ruins, they went to schools, to libraries, to scholars.

Baekhyun turned up nothing. Sure, there was the odd mention in historical texts, here or there, of a Tranquil’s connection to the Fade being temporarily restored by contact with a spirit, but it was only ever temporary. No one, as far as he could tell, had ever made the restoration permanent.

So they kept travelling. What else would they do? There was nowhere to settle, not now, not while war waged around them.

News spread that the main front of the war had moved to Ferelden, raging in the fields and towns of the poor country folk, caught in the middle. They were in the southern part of Nevarra by that point, a short journey by ship away. Baekhyun nearly turned them southwards at that point, thinking that they could find a way to help, to evacuate refugees or bring healing to the wounded, _something._

But the Tranquil were not accepted by either side, and Yixing needed him. They stayed away.

Then, the sky ripped open.

No one knew what was happening, at first. The explosion was so loud, so high in the sky, that it could be seen in multiple countries and heard in even more. The entire seaside village where they were staying turned out in confusion, racing to the cliffs’ edge to see the enormous, glowing green _thing_ hovering over the mountains across the sea.

Not long after, the demons appeared.

These were not spirits, drawn by a mage’s spell, by some indiscriminate or uncautious use of power. Not shades, not abominations. These were fully physical and fully manifest _demons,_ monsters driven insane by the sudden shift from their home in the Fade to the strange and alien mortal world, and they were _everywhere._

Baekhyun fought. Yixing healed. They did their best, but in the end, the town was overrun, and they, along with all of the survivors, ran.

They soon realized that what had happened in that little seaside village was happening all over the world, pockets of demons that were slowly spreading. Mortals gathered in the places that were still safe, wondering how long it would be before there was nowhere left to run.

Wondering if this was the end of the world.

Weeks passed, and the wild rumors about what had happened solidified as the real story began to spread. The Divine, the leader of the Chantry and the highest authority in Thedas, had hosted a conclave, a last-ditch attempt to mediate between the mages and Templars to hopefully broker peace. It was attacked by a power no one had ever seen, and everyone attending had died, leaving all three factions scattered and without leadership.

In its wake, a new organization calling itself the Inquisition was born, not affiliated with the Chantry or the Templars or the mages or any government. Something new, something unlike anything that had been attempted in living memory.

Everyone expected that this was the end, but somehow, incredibly, it wasn’t. The tide of demons was not destroyed, but it stopped advancing. Governments attempted to rebuild, to reclaim that which had been lost, to find stability, a new status quo.

Baekhyun and Yixing went back to travelling, but their goal had changed. Everywhere they went, now, it was to protect those who had no protection. To heal. To help.

Months went by. Baekhyun and Yixing travelled. They were in a little village in Orlais, a day’s ride north of Montfort, and actively in the middle of helping the village to fight off a demon attack when the past finally caught up to them.

It came first as bolts of lightning from a cloudless sky, rending the night and the demons closing around them. Then, it was a flash of a blade from the shadows, nearly too fast to be seen, but so familiar that Baekhyun was not even completely surprised when Sehun’s bulk planted itself at his side.

He wasn’t wearing Templar armor anymore, but Sehun’s posture, his sword and shield, were immediately recognizable, even from the corner of his eye. Baekhyun flashed him a quick, grateful smile, and they got to work.

With the reinforcements, beating back the demons was much easier. They didn’t lose any of the townsfolk, for a change, and when the battle was over, Yixing moved silently through the ranks of the wounded, handing out potions. Baekhyun stuck close to his side - just in case - and let Sehun and the others come to him.

It didn’t take long. “You’re a hard man to track,” Sehun said, as he fell into step beside them. “We’ve been following you for a week, and looking for you for weeks more.”

“We weren’t particularly trying to hide,” Baekhyun murmured, as Yixing flashed a fake, pasted-on polite smile to the woman he was speaking to and came back over to Baekhyun’s side. “Just, you know. Keeping a low profile. It’s a dangerous world out there.”

“Don’t I know it.” They wandered over to the rift in the veil where the demons had come through, dormant for now. Jongin was kneeling under it with some kind of… device? Totem? Baekhyun wasn’t sure what it was, while Tao, no longer shrouded in shadow, stood guard. “We all set here?”

Jongin stood. His hair was longer, hanging loose and silky past his chin. Sehun’s was longer, too, tied back in a plait between his shoulderblades, but Tao’s had been cropped short, patterns shaved into the nape at his neck. “Yep, all set,” Jongin confirmed. “That should help keep it dormant until the Inquisitor can get out here to close it.” Spotting Baekhyun and Yixing, he smiled, and came over to clasp their hands. “Hey, I’m so glad we found you. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

They ended up claiming a table in a shadowy, candle-lit corner of the town’s biggest tavern, conversation disguised by the voices of those around them. Only once inside, once there was light to see other than the moon, did Baekhyun realize that the three of them were actually wearing matching _uniforms,_ and moreover, that he recognized the insignia, the sunburst eye.

“You joined the Inquisition?” he asked, incredulously. “I thought you were still in Starkhaven.” Baekhyun and Yixing had stopped there more than once in the early days, but it had been a long time.

“We were, until recently,” Tao said. “Got a lot done in three years, too. But Starkhaven’s royal family used the chaos of the war to regain control over the city, and they have a functioning city guard now, a standing army, judges and laws that actually _attempt_ to keep the peace. Things got better, and we weren’t needed anymore.”

Sehun was absently spinning his mug of ale on the table. “Cullen left the Templars entirely when they defected from the Chantry,” he continued. “He was a founding member of the Inquisition, if you can believe that. As soon as they had their base settled, he sent us the invitation to join them. We decided to go where we could do the most good.”

From his pack, Jongin pulled out two letters, pushing them across the table to Baekhyun and Yixing. Baekhyun popped the seal - green wax, with the Inquisition’s sunburst eye stamped into it - and started to read.

 

_Serah Baekhyun,_

_Over these past few weeks I have heard much about you from those whose opinions I trust - from Sehun and Jongin, from Commander Cullen, and even from Chanyeol Hawke, who recently has joined us here. It would be my honor to offer you a position within the Inquisition as soldier, scout or agent, whatever you would prefer._

_If you are interested, come to Skyhold, and we can discuss the specifics. I look forward to meeting you._

_Sincerely,_  
_Kris Trevelyan, Lord Inquisitor_

 

Disbelieving, Baekhyun read the letter again, and again. A personal invitation from the Inquisitor himself, to join the Inquisition? It was tempting, _very_ tempting.

Yixing closed his own letter with a decisive snap, and said, “I will return with you to Skyhold.”

All of them blinked at him. “Really? Are you sure?” Baekhyun said, curious.

Silently, Yixing pushed the letter over to him, and Baekhyun opened it.

 

_Yixing,_

_I hope that this letter finds you safe and in good health. I have news that I wanted to share with you before anyone else._

_The Inquisition may have found a cure for Tranquility._

_It is not for certain, not yet. Preliminary testing and research suggests that the process is traumatic, and that while it may restore a Tranquil’s connection to the Fade, it may not restore them exactly as they were before they were made Tranquil, or that there may be other, heretofore unknown side effects._

_We are in need of volunteers on whom to test this process, and the few Tranquil who have signed on with the Inquisition have shown no interest. But I have always felt more than a little responsible for your Tranquility, and I wanted to give you this opportunity, if you would choose to take it._

_This is a secret we have not widely shared, for fear of the chaos it may cause. I’d recommend not telling Baekhyun of this unless you decide to do it, for his own sanity. I also must ask that you not tell anyone else about this, not even Sehun, Jongin or Tao, as we cannot risk this information becoming public knowledge before we know if it will actually work._

_In either case, you are welcome to join us here at Skyhold. Even if you decide not to take the risk - and I would not blame you, certainly - we always have need for expert potions-masters._

_Yours as ever,_  
_Ser Cullen Stanton Rutherford_  
_Commander of the Inquisition_

 

With trembling hands, Baekhyun closed the letter. “We should burn this,” he said numbly.

Sehun, who knew him well enough to see his distress, his disbelieving hope, sat forward. “Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun couldn’t look at him, not now. He’d spill everything. Instead, he looked to Yixing, meeting his eyes. “You’re sure?” he asked. Yixing nodded, as decisive as he always was. “But… Why?”

Yixing barely blinked. “It is a chance to be useful,” he said, as if it was obvious. “A chance to serve a purpose that may help many people.”

Baekhyun was not going to cry. He was _not._ Instead, he held Yixing’s letter over the nearby candle until it caught, and let the ashes crumble into the candleholder. “Then I guess we’re coming back with you to Skyhold,” he said.

Beaming, Jongin covered both their hands with his own. “That’s great!” he said. “Welcome to the Inquisition.”

Shakily, Baekhyun smiled back at him, and for the first time in three years, he allowed himself to hope.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THANK YOU FOR READING!** Turn to the next chapter for extra content and a deleted scene!!


	14. Extras & Deleted Scene

** Notes & Extras **

You guys, thank you so much for your positive response to this fic! I was really nervous about posting this for a number of reasons, so I’m relieved people liked it.

I’m very curious to know if I got any Dragon Age readers who are not familiar with EXO. I know there was at least one, but if you came here through the Dragon Age tag and not the EXO tag, please comment, I would love to know what you think!

I have several more ideas for stories that take place in this universe, but I can’t promise right now that I will ever write them. We’ll see what happens. As always, you can ask me questions on [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee), or follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unnie_bee) if you want to know what I’m up to next!

 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

 

 **My “Canon” Playthrough**  
One of the coolest things about the Dragon Age series is that most people in the fandom have a “canon” playthrough that’s unique to them. This is one continuous story, built by the characters the player creates as their avatars and by the decisions those characters make, and they can vary pretty wildly!

My playthrough has Kyungsoo as the Warden in DAO and Warden-Commander DAO:A, Chanyeol as Hawke in DA2, and Kris as the Inquisitor in DAI. I have done several art pieces of them:

[Kyungsoo as the Warden](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dE-vbs6OsKU8yXbV6ZCFdWXtkZCJNDaK)  
[Portrait of Chanyeol Hawke](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByPaf2DSsSrRbnByQjlQaXBtelU)  
[Full-body of Chanyeol as Hawke](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qmIHfsBbciOh8tQW2fPgz4dtADN14z5P) (Unfinished)  
[Kris as the Inquisitor](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1h23pcTKAUdhBXdTBj9F5WEPJ2CqnS-a-)

Also this is as good a place as any to post again [my sketch of Tao](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r9wTPkoeCYqc-cHcuHUWdgh3utjZH_dZ).

I started my “canon” playthrough years ago, and I actually recorded it and uploaded it to YouTube! I have all of DAO, DAO:A, and DA2 uploaded, plus the first half of DAI, which I am still working on.

 **I used the footage to make music videos for each character:**  
[Kyungsoo Tabris, Hero of Ferelden](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByPaf2DSsSrRS1Z1UElxbTVjMGc) \- **“This is War”** by 30 Seconds to Mars  
[Chanyeol Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByPaf2DSsSrRZ0dTN0RnRVFFVzQ) \- **“Hurricane”** by 30 Seconds to Mars  
[Kris Trevelyan, Lord Inquisitor](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Nl9dbXojCPqbqR1lW6fDSeGPrLs0F36d) \- **“Heart of the Darkness”** by Sam Tinnesz (1st half of his story only)

The second half of Kris’s story will be set to **“Hero”** by Mike Mains  & Tommee Profitt, but I haven’t finished my playthrough so I don’t have the footage to use yet!

 

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 **Fun facts about this story**  
This entire fic was inspired by this line in [Sera’s introductory scene](https://youtu.be/IKS9e9h53gY?t=7m12s) in DAI: “The Friends of Red Jenny. That’s me! Well, I’m one. So is a fence in Montfort, some woman in Kirkwall… There are three of them in Starkhaven, brothers or something.” Originally I was planning to have the slavery mystery and the Friends be the main plotline, but the mage conflict took over when I wasn’t looking!

Baekhyun’s character is in the place of Keran, the young Templar recruit who features in the quests Enemies Among Us and Best Served Cold.

I decided to make Jongin be from Starkhaven pretty much only because of how similar he is in coloring and features to [Alain](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/4/4d/Alain_portait.png/revision/latest?cb=20140819091710) and (to a lesser extent) [Sebastian](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/c/c2/Seb01.png/revision/latest?cb=20110324222346).

I considered putting Yixing in the place of the mage Alain, but decided I didn’t want both Yixing and Jongin to be from Starkhaven, so Yixing got to be a new character and Alain got to stay.

Sehun in this universe has lightly tanned skin, naturally dark blond hair, and amber eyes. This color combination appears to be genetically very common in Thedas, and in Fereldens in particular - see Alistair, Cullen, Sera, Cailen, and I think Cole (not that you can tell under his hat.) Anders and Varric have this coloring as well, but they are not Fereldan-born. (Note that the coloring might not match in my playthrough, as I used mods that changed some people’s coloring.)

I did not have the Exiled Prince DLC when I played through the game, so Sebastian does not ever meet Hawke within my game canon. Would have been hilarious to have Jongin suddenly face to face with the last remaining member of the Starkhaven royal family, though.

The Starkhaven Circle of Magi is not named within the canon DA-verse, as far as I am aware. I named it Corin’s Lookout. Corin was the Grey Warden who ended the Second Blight at the Battle of Starkhaven in 1:95 Divine.

Hawke’s Mabari in my playthrough was actually named Baekhyun, but I obviously had to change that when I decided to make Baekhyun an actual character.

Bioware’s default “canon” Hawke is also a mage, and despite me using Chanyeol’s looks and basic personality, I kept a lot of the elements from Garrett Hawke’s design, including: amber eyes, red war paint on his nose, favoring the Staff of Parlathan as the main weapon and the Mantle of the Champion as his main armor, and his super in-your-face fighting style. I did _not_ keep the implication in the Destiny trailer that Hawke is a blood mage, though, as even Bioware seems to have scrapped that bit of idiocy. [You can see Garrett Hawke in action here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlACgYHtWCI).

FereldEn is the name of the country, and FereldAn is the demonym. So just like someone from Spain is Spanish, someone from Ferelden is Fereldan. (Why, Bioware. Why did you do that.)

Bioware is not always consistent with their accents, which is obnoxious, so I went with the most recognizable versions. I answered an ask [here](https://curiouscat.me/unnie_bee/post/402808416) regarding the accents in this story, with examples.

There are a couple of characters who are unnamed in the story, but for whom I had a specific NPC in mind. The shopkeep that Tao sells the amulet to is Hubert. Sehun’s cousin is Slim Couldry, and the girl crying over her friend in Sehun’s nightmare is Sera, who would have been somewhere between 12-15 years old at the time. Other characters, like Vanard’s elven servant and the Antivan raider captain who rescued Tao, are not meant to be anyone in particular from the DA-verse. Still others, like Marcus, Verne, and Maxine, are completely new NPCs I made up.

I made the decision to eliminate references to Fenris’s lyrium tattoos because they require so much explanation and had no impact on the story. My Act 3 Fenris had a modded outfit that covered him from chin to ankle anyway, so they were much less obvious. Aveline is not mentioned for the same reason - she’s not important to the story, so even though she was at the final battle I decided to omit her for clarity’s sake.

 

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 **Timeline, because this shit is confusing!**  
Events in order through each year.

**YEAR 9:30 DRAGON:**  
**Kyungsoo Tabris, 21,** is conscripted by the Grey Wardens, saving him from execution after he murders the human nobles who raped his cousin. _(This is the beginning of Dragon Age Origins.)_

The Battle of Ostagar kicks off the Fifth Blight, and results in the death of all Grey Wardens in Ferelden except Kyungsoo and his companion Alistair.

The Arling of Denerim is usurped by Rendon Howe. As a distraction from this, Howe razes Denerim’s Alienage, resulting in **the death of Sehun’s father.**

Kyungsoo goes to Redcliffe to seek aid from Arl Eamon Guerrin, and finds the entire castle being terrorized by Connor Guerrin, the Arl’s 9-year-old son, who is plagued by a Desire demon.

Looking for mages to help free Connor, Kyungsoo travels to the Circle of Magi at Kinloch Hold. He finds the tower being terrorized by blood mages and a Sloth demon named Torpor. He frees the tower and kills the demons, blood mages and abominations within, but is only able to save a few survivors - including **Cullen, 19,** who was held and tortured by blood mages for days before being rescued.

The Blight surges up from the south, destroying a huge section of southern Ferelden. **Chanyeol Hawke, 22,** and his family flee the horde. His sister Bethany is killed, but Hawke, his 19-year-old brother Carver, and his mother make it to the coast and get on a ship for Kirkwall. _(This is the beginning of Dragon Age II.)_

Kyungsoo brings a group of Senior Enchanters from the Circle Tower to Redcliffe, where they perform the ritual to send Kyungsoo’s companion Morrigan into the Fade. Morrigan kills the demon and frees Connor from its control.

The Hawke family lands in Kirkwall and discovers that Hawke’s uncle has lost the family fortune. With no other way to buy entrance into the city, **Chanyeol and Carver indenture themselves** to a mercenary company to pay off the debt.

Half a year passes. Kyungsoo and his companions secure aide from the humans of Redcliffe, the mages of Kinloch Hold, the Dalish clan in the Brecilian Forest, and the dwarves of Orzammar.

News of the Blight marching northward reaches Denerim, and people begin to flee the city. **Sehun, 17,** begs his mother to come with him, but she refuses to leave her employer, who is also her lover. Sehun gets on a boat heading for Kirkwall alone.

Two months later, the **Battle of Denerim** ends the Fifth Blight when Kyungsoo kills the Archdemon, earning the title “Hero of Ferelden” and the rank of Warden-Commander.

With the Blight ended, the pressure of the Ferelden refugees in Kirkwall eases, and Sehun is able to sneak into the city proper, after months of being stuck in refugee camps just outside.

It becomes apparent that Cullen is suffering from PTSD and anger issues following his torture and cannot remain in the place where he was tortured, and he is reassigned to Kirkwall. **Knight-Commander Meredith** of the Kirkwall Gallows immediately sees Cullen’s anger towards mages as kindred to her own, and promotes the boy to Knight-Captain, bypassing the years of service normally required for the position.

Kyungsoo, now ranked Warden-Commander, is dispatched to Vigil’s Keep outside of the city of Amaranthine to put down the last of the Darkspawn hordes. In the process, he rescues and conscripts the mage **Anders,** who is on the run from the Ferelden Circle and the Templars. _(This is the beginning of Dragon Age Origins: Awakening.)_

During their work in Amaranthine, Kyungsoo and his companions accidentally manage to pull a **spirit of Justice** out of the Fade and into the body of a recently-killed Grey Warden. Justice decides to join them and help, even though the body he is using is decaying out from under him.

Justice and Anders fight side-by-side with Kyungsoo, and became friends. In the Battle of Amaranthine and Vigil’s Keep, both of them disappear - only later would it be discovered that **Anders had offered himself up as a willing host for Justice,** and together they left Ferelden to go to Kirkwall in the hopes of saving Anders’ former lover, Karl, from the Gallows.

Near the end of the year, the Starkhaven Circle of Magi in Corin’s Lookout is burned to the ground during an attack on the Starkhaven royal family. **Jongin, 18,** along with **Alain, 21,** and the rest of the Starkhaven survivors, are transferred to the Gallows in Kirkwall.

 

 **YEAR 9:31 DRAGON:**  
A ship full of **Qunari** warriors, including their highest general, the Arishok, is shipwrecked in Kirkwall. Viscount Dumar, as a gesture of goodwill, gives them a compound within the Docks district where they can stay until they can get a ship to leave.

Having worked off their debt in record time and made a name for themselves as hired fighters, **Chanyeol, 23, and Carver, 20,** accept a business proposal from **Varric Tethras** \- they would raise enough gold to invest in Varric’s brother’s expedition into the Deep Roads, with the hope of finding enough riches to secure their place in the city and remove the threat of Templars coming to take Chanyeol away.

Over the course of the next few months, Chanyeol and Carver take every paying job they can find, resulting in them meeting and befriending **Anders, Fenris, Isabela, and Merrill.**

Having been struggling to make ends meet within Kirkwall for a year, **Sehun, now 18,** complains to Lirene that he wants to be something more. Lirene introduces him to Cullen, who **convinces Sehun to enlist in the Templars.** Sehun and Cullen, similar in age and with a shared cultural background, quickly become good friends.

An apostate blood mage begins kidnapping Templar recruits and summoning demons into them using a powerful ritual. One of the kidnapped recruits is **Baekhyun, 19,** whose older brother Baekbeom puts up a reward for his return. Hawke takes the job and rescues Baekhyun, and even vouches for Baekhyun’s lack of possession after having Merrill taste his blood for demons. **Cullen, now 20,** agrees to let Baekhyun remain a recruit, but he is not allowed to become a full Knight until he has gone ten years without showing any signs of demonic influence.

All of the Starkhaven mages (except Jongin, who is still an apprentice and is left out of this) make **a concerted attempt to escape from the Gallows.** Ser Karras is dispatched to hunt them down. Fearing what Karras will do, Ser Thrask enlists Hawke’s help to track down the mages before Karras can. Decimus, Grace’s lover, is killed by Hawke in this conflict, as he is a blood mage and mistakenly assumes Hawke is there to drag them all back to the Gallows. In an attempt to give the rest of the mages time to flee, Hawke tricks Karras into going the wrong way. It nearly works, but Karras manages to find the mages and drag them back anyway.

Karras, now with a personal vendetta against the Starkhaven mages, begins regularly abusing and assaulting Grace and Alain as a display of power.

 **Sehun, 18, and Jongin, 19,** meet for the first time, and soon develop silent crushes on each other. Sehun also meets Baekhyun, and they become friends.

Having accumulated the coin necessary, Chanyeol, Carver and Anders accompany Varric and his brother Bartrand on the **expedition into the Deep Roads.** Down there, they discover an ancient dwarven thaig filled with weird red lyrium, including an idol carved from it. Bartrand steals the idol and traps the rest in the Deep Roads. 

Chanyeol leads the other three to the surface, but not before Carver contracts the Blight. Anders leads Carver to **a band of Grey Wardens,** and Chanyeol is forced to let them take his brother, and hopefully save his life.

 **Chanyeol returns to the surface** with an enormous fortune in gold and ancient relics, but without his brother.

 

 **YEAR 9:32 DRAGON:**  
**Chanyeol, 24,** buys back his family’s estate and petitions the Viscount to allow his mother’s family to be reinstated to the nobility.

 **Yixing, 25,** a Dalish elf, is captured by Templars and taken from his clan. He is sent to Kirkwall’s Gallows, where he eventually settles into his new life, and soon befriends **Jongin, now 20.**

 

 **YEAR 9:33 DRAGON:**  
The seaside slums of Ayesleigh are attacked by Tevinter slavers. **Tao, 22,** loses his mother in the conflict, and is captured and enslaved. He is aboard the ship for two months, sailing around the coastline, before the slavers are defeated by an Antivan raider captain and Tao is freed, just outside of Kirkwall. With nothing but the rags on his back and no family to return to, Tao settles in the city, and attempts to make himself a home.

 **Sehun, 20,** takes his vows and becomes a full Knight of the Templar Order.

Karras takes notice of **Jongin, 21,** by virtue of his close friendship with **Alain, 24,** and begins abusing him as well. Jongin, fearing that his first time with a man will end up being an assault, asks **Yixing, 26,** to teach him how sex should be; they begin a friends-with-benefits type of relationship that lasts for the better part of a year.

 **YEAR 9:34 DRAGON:**  
Ser Emeric, a highly respected Lieutenant of the Templar Order, is murdered by blood mages. The other Lieutenants are also indisposed within a few months of each other - Ser Alrik is killed by Anders/Justice, Ser Conrad is arrested for lyrium smuggling, and Ser Roderick is forced to retire after he falls prey to lyrium addlement. In response, **Meredith promotes Karras, Mettin, Thrask and Agatha to Lieutenant.**

Tension with the Qunari, who have made no efforts whatsoever to leave the city, come to a head, resulting in the First Battle of Kirkwall and the Qunari killing Viscount Dumar. **Chanyeol Hawke, 26,** challenges the Arishok to single combat and wins, resulting in his being named Champion of Kirkwall.

During the First Battle of Kirkwall, Baekhyun’s brother Baekbeom is killed. **Tao, 23,** meets **Charade, 24,** during the battle, and the two remain in touch. The former Red Jenny of Kirkwall is killed in the battle as well, and Charade takes up the mantle.

With the Viscount dead, **Meredith effectively takes control of Kirkwall,** keeping any of the nobles vying for the office at bay.

 

 **YEAR 9:36 DRAGON:**  
Near the end of the year, **Baekhyun, 24, and Yixing, 29,** begin a clandestine relationship.

 

 **YEAR 9:37 DRAGON:**  
Just before the events of the story, Chanyeol and Charade meet and realize they are cousins.

 **The events of City of Chains take place.** Sehun is 24, Jongin 25, and Tao 26. Baekhyun is 25 and Yixing 30. Carver and Cullen are both 26, Charade is 27, Alain is 28 and Chanyeol is 29.

Sehun, Jongin and Tao **leave Kirkwall and go to Starkhaven.** Tao becomes Starkhaven’s Red Jenny, but eventually it becomes known that there are _three_ Red Jennys in Starkhaven.

The events of the story and Dragon Age II lead directly into the **Mage-Templar War** over the next three years.

 

 **YEAR 9:40 DRAGON:**  
**Cullen, 29,** leaves the Templars for good, instead taking a job offer from Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, who intends to revive the ancient Inquisition in an attempt to stop the Mage-Templar War. He weans himself off of lyrium.

The Conclave at Haven takes place, and is destroyed, leading to **the creation of the Inquisition. Kris Trevelyan, 33,** a nobleman from the Free Marcher kingdom of Ostwick, accidentally ends up in the middle of it and becomes the Herald of Andraste, and a few months later is named the Lord Inquisitor. _(This is the beginning of Dragon Age Inquisition.)_

 **Chanyeol Hawke, 32,** eventually joins the Inquisition as well, after they move to Skyhold Fortress in the Frostback Mountains. A few weeks later, **Kyungsoo Tabris, 31,** does the same.

Cullen sends a letter to **Sehun, Jongin, and Tao, now 27, 28 and 29** respectively, inviting the three of them to come join him. They take him up on his offer and **become Agents of the Inquisition.**

Sehun realizes that Cullen is no longer taking lyrium, and decides to do the same, forcing himself to go through withdrawal. With Cullen’s help and the Inquisition’s resources, he eventually manages to get clean.

 **The epilogue takes place** \- Sehun, Jongin and Tao seek out Baekhyun, 28, and Yixing, 33, and invite them to come back to Skyhold.

 

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** Canon Playthrough Clips **

[You can find the entire playthrough here](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCvHWF0KjM34LFBOppINwaQ/playlists?sort=dd&view=1&shelf_id=0). It’s a lot, though, so here are some highlights, if you want to see just the parts of the game that inform upon this story.

 

[Tranquility](https://youtu.be/pg-6Zb_aJtU?t=39m12s) \- (39:12 - 52:30) This is Anders’s intro quest and the introduction of the concepts of Tranquility, spirit possession, and how the two interact. It’s also Lirene’s introduction.

[Act of Mercy](https://youtu.be/M4boQABLo9E?t=2m23s) \- (2:23 - 9:41) This is the quest that introduces Karras, Alain, Thrask, Grace and Decimus. It takes place 6 years before the story. (You can kill Karras here, but I didn’t know he was an enormous dick, so I tried to trick him instead. It doesn’t work - he drags the mages back anyway.)

[Magistrate’s Orders](https://youtu.be/qU56QFFVScY?t=3m2s) \- (3:02 - 11:35) This is the only quest with Magistrate Vanard, which reveals what a tool he is. I didn’t record the final conversation with Vanard, but he swears revenge on you after this. You never hear from him again in-game, however.

[Enemies Among Us](https://youtu.be/M4boQABLo9E?t=9m45s) \- (9:45 - 30:32) This is Baekhyun’s backstory, and Cullen’s DAII introduction. I actually put Baekhyun in the place of the character Keran, and Baekbeom in the place of Keran’s sister Macha, so just… use your imagination lol.

[Gamlen’s Greatest Treasure](https://youtu.be/slGqASYxjoY?t=1m40s) \- (1:40 - 13:12) This is how Hawke and Charade meet, and takes place just a few weeks before the start of City of Chains. (The actual scene where they meet starts at 8:40.)

[On the Loose](https://youtu.be/slGqASYxjoY?t=13m40s) \- (13:40 - 35:53) This is where Meredith asks Hawke’s help to retrieve Evelina, Huon and Emile. It takes place while Sehun is locked in solitary for punishment, after Jongin destroys his phylactery and leaves the vault open. (In CoC canon, Emile agrees to return to the Gallows the next morning, and Hawke lets him go. He is captured by the slavers as he is returning and never makes it back to the Gallows. Thus, the last conversation with Meredith does not happen.)

[Best Served Cold](https://youtu.be/RGmwAf8wCa8?t=8m26s) \- (8:26 - 22:30) This is the events that Baekhyun describes to Sehun just before Yixing is made tranquil. Obviously I made a couple of small changes to this by adding Yixing and having Baekhyun return to the Gallows, whereas the Templar he replaces, Keran, immediately leaves the Order in the game canon.

[The Last Straw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul2Z8BYg-3w) \- This is the final battle, from Hawke’s point of view, and the ending of the game.

[My World State](https://youtu.be/MNHDKe9ouOI) \- The entire story of my canon DAO and DA2, as narrated by Varric. This is the world state I imported into DAI.

 

 **DAI scenes that relate:**  
[Templars performing a spell-breaking ritual using lyrium](https://youtu.be/kX--ZGkG7-g?t=22m12s) (22:12 - 22:38)  
[Varric introducing Chanyeol Hawke to Inquisitor Kris](https://youtu.be/xYJT9vxUCyw) (0:00 - 2:30)  
[Cullen talking about lyrium addiction](https://youtu.be/nLYhOmBFNs8?t=4m41s) (4:41 - 6:04)

 

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 **Playlist:**  
For whatever reason, I listened to Imagine Dragons and ONLY Imagine Dragons while I was brainstorming/visualizing for this piece, so all songs below are by them:

 **Monster** \- Jongin  
**Believer** \- Sehun  
**Thief** \- Tao  
**Radioactive** \- Kirkwall  
**Demons** \- Jongin/Sehun  
**Tiptoe** \- Charade  
**Whatever It Takes** \- Chanyeol  
**Warriors** \- Meredith  & the Templar Order  
**Who We Are** \- Orsino  & Kirkwall’s Mages  
**Smoke and Mirrors** \- Baekhyun/Yixing  
**The Fall** \- Cullen  
**Bleeding Out** \- Jongin/Ardor  
**Battle Cry** \- Final Chapter  
**Walking the Wire** \- Jongin/Sehun/Tao  
**I Was Me** \- Epilogue

 

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** The Deleted Epilogue **

_{This was my original epilogue, before I had my (much better) idea for the epilogue as it appeared in the story. Please note that this is unedited and un-beta’d.}_

 

The trip from Starkhaven to Skyhold was the longest journey Sehun had ever made.

The fastest route took them south through Kirkwall, which was unsettling enough after three years away, then across the Waking Sea to Ferelden’s Storm Coast. From there, they rented a wagon and travelled day and night west along the Imperial Highway, and then up the winding, treacherously narrow paths into the Frostback Mountains.

It took nearly two weeks. Sehun had never been so fatigued, or so _cold_. Even after an entire childhood in the South, the Frostbacks were worse. Jongin looked miserable, huddling close to Sehun’s side as they drove. And Tao, born in a land of sizzling heat and constant humidity, was suffering even more than Jongin, complaining loudly and bundling himself in every bit of clothing and blanket that he could find.

When the castle of Skyhold finally came into view, in the middle of the morning twelve days into their journey, it was not gradual, not a speck in the distance that got larger as they approached. It was all at once, as they emerged from a deep chasm and rounded the side of a peak, sitting on top of another peak in the distance, huge and imposing and all but glowing in the morning sunlight.

Sehun pulls the horses to a halt, out of instinct alone. “Holy Andraste,” he breathed, staring wide-eyed at the enormous stone fortress.

“It’s beautiful,” Jongin murmured. “What’s something like that doing way out here?”

“Freezing, that’s what it’s doing.” Tao nudged Sehun. “Come on, I want to be indoors.”

It was difficult not to gape like an uncultured country bumpkin when they finally crossed the massive, chasm-spanning bridge and entered the castle proper. Jongin didn’t even bother to try, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide with awe at the sudden cacophony of sound and color and activity. Sehun didn't know exactly what he was expecting, but a bustling community with what looks like dozens, maybe _hundreds_ of people, was definitely not it.

The first thing he noticed was the change in climate. Outside the walls, the air was frigid and dry, everything covered in snow and frost, and the only plant life was pine trees and mountain scrub. But there was no snow inside the castle courtyard, no frost; the greenery was lush and vibrant and it was warm as a spring day in Denerim. No one was wearing heavy winter gear inside, and even Tao started to shed his layers as they drove through the courtyard and up to the main entrance.

No one paid them any attention. The doors of the main building were flung wide open, which Sehun found odd. Literally anyone could walk right in, and that’s precisely what they were doing, a steady stream of nobles and merchants, workers and soldiers moving in and out of the doors. Sehun had never seen such a mixed bag of cultures in his life - all races, all nationalities, all social classes, mingling like it was nothing. To his right there was an Orlesian noble in full court dress and mask chatting with a dwarven tradesman; to his left, a Dalish huntswoman was flirting with a kitchen maid.

It was beautiful, very inspiring, but also fucking confusing.

A pair of guards in muted green came up to the cart, careful not to spook the horses. “Ho, there! You’re the three from Starkhaven, yeah?” Tao made a surprised noise, and Sehun nodded, keeping his own surprise hidden. “Orders are to take you to the Commander right away. We’ll see to the horses and take all this up to your room for you.” One of the guards took the reins from Sehun’s hands, and the other beckoned.

Exchanging glances, Sehun got out of the cart first, just in case. Tao had already shed all of his blankets, leaving him free to grab for his knives if necessary, and Jongin, out of habit, waited until they were both on their feet and ready to move before he got out of the cart himself. The guards didn’t seem to notice their caution, or perhaps didn’t care. “How did anyone find out that we were coming?” Sehun asked, curious. “We didn’t tell anyone or send word ahead.”

The guards exchanged amused glances. “You get used to it,” was all they said.

The first guard swung up into the cart seat to drive away, and the second guard took them towards the outer wall. “Normally Commander Cullen would see newcomers in his office, but he’s been doing a lot of work from the battlements lately.” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gestured. “He’s right up there, go on.”

Sehun nodded his thanks and started up the stairs, trying not to let his nerves show.

He must have been unsuccessful, because Jongin took his hand and squeezed it briefly, and Tao let a hand rest on the small of Sehun’s back for a moment, reminding him that they were there. “Sorry,” he muttered, and let out a calming breath. “It’s just… Cullen never mentioned all this. He just said he had a place for us, if we wanted to help, I didn’t realize...”

“I trust Cullen’s judgement,” Jongin murmured. “If he says it’s a good organization, then I believe him. He certainly knows what a bad one looks like.”

“I’m just impressed at the level of coordination,” Tao said. “Look at this place. Feeding all these people alone must take an army.”

Further conversation was cut off as they reached the top and came around the wall to the battlements. There were three men leaning against the parapets, mired deep in spirited debate, complete with expressive gestures. One of them had very familiar, close-cropped blond hair.

“Cullen,” Sehun called, before he thought the better of it.

Cullen turned. Had Sehun ever seen him wear anything other than Templar armor or robes? He was in full dress armor, extravagantly decorated plate with a fur mantle and a cape. His eyes lit up when he saw Sehun, a bright, pleased smile, and Maker, though he looked tired, Sehun had not known Cullen could look that _happy_.

“You made it!” Cullen came straight for them, holding out his hand. “It’s good to see you, all of you. How was the trip, was it terrible?” He clasped Sehun’s hand warmly, and nodded politely to Jongin and Tao.

“Look at this,” a deep voice rumbled in amusement. “He’s acting like a mabari pup.”

Sehun looked over Cullen’s shoulder and blinked in surprise, just as Tao exclaimed, “Hawke?”

Grinning, Chanyeol Hawke flashed them an irreverently sloppy salute. “Glad you could make it, boys.”

Tao pinned Cullen with a look. “You failed to mention this in your letter,” he accused. 

Chanyeol laughed and Cullen shrugged sheepishly. “He’s still wanted by the Chantry for what happened in Kirkwall, despite multiple accounts attempting to bring the truth to light. We didn’t want to take risks.”

“We’re already considered heretics,” the third man said. “Might as well at least _attempt_ not to make it worse.”

“You just don’t want to deal with a bunch of Revered Mothers coming up here to cluck at you,” Chanyeol accused, as the third man pushed off from the wall and came over to stand at Cullen’s side.

“You’re right, I don’t. I also don’t want you to get assassinated.” The third man, taller even than Hawke, lean and silver-haired with handsome, severe features, extended a hand of his own. “Kris Trevelyan,” he said. “I’ve heard quite a few stories about you three.”

Sehun froze in place with his hand half-extended. Beside him, Tao tensed, and Jongin let out a tiny, alarmed squeak.

Both Cullen and Chanyeol started laughing again.

“I didn’t realize - ” Flustered, Sehun bowed, then realized the man was still holding out his hand and quickly clasped it. “It’s an honor, Lord Inquisitor.” He quickly introduced himself, Jongin, and Tao.

Kris Trevelyan - His Worship, Lord Inquisitor, Herald of Andraste, the Hero of Thedas, _that_ Kris Trevelyan - smiled easily and leaned casually against the battlements again. “Knowing how my advisors operate,” he said, “I am sure that there was not nearly as much information in Cullen’s letter as he would have liked to include.” Cullen snorted, but didn’t argue. “So here is the offer. We are building an army, as I am sure you know, but we do much more than that. Spies. Diplomatic work. Research. We welcome any who want to join, and you three are invited to take up positions best suited to each of your individual talents.”

Sehun exchanged glances with Jongin, even as Tao stepped a little bit closer. Split up? He was suggesting they split up?

Shrewdly, Kris watched them, his head cocking in interest. “From what I’ve been told, though, I didn’t think that would suit you. So there’s other options, too. If you wish to return to Starkhaven and the work you have been doing there, we would welcome any information or resources you might come across, and provide you with resources and information that might benefit you, as well.”

“You mean, become a part of your spy network,” Tao said.

“Sure. We already have similar arrangements with the Red Jennys in several other cities, including Charade in Kirkwall, whom I believe you know.” Sehun glanced at Chanyeol upon hearing this, wondering if he’d disclosed the family connection there. “Or, if you prefer, you could remain here, as a unit. We’ve found that a small, well-rounded group of agents can move faster than a battalion of soldiers, and be more effective than a lone scout or messenger.”

“Our seneschal thinks you three would be good recruiters,” Cullen added. “Since you represent such a wide variety of backgrounds and you work so well together. People are craving examples of that kind of unity right now, you could inspire others to join up.”

Sehun glanced at Jongin, and then at Tao, and then watched as Jongin and Tao glanced at each other. “We don’t have to decide right now, do we?” Jongin asked.

“Of course not.” Setting down his work, Cullen glanced at the Inquisitor, Kris. “I’ll take them to their room?” Kris nodded and waved a dismissive hand, flashing Sehun, Jongin and Tao another smile, and then turned back to Chanyeol, falling right back into conversation. “Alright, follow me,” Cullen said.

They did, falling in step two-abreast on the narrow ramparts, walking across the top of the wall. The view of the mountains was incredible, and the lack of wind chill was curious, but Sehun didn’t get to comment on any of that, because his arm brushed Cullen’s as he walked, and he realized something was missing, and stopped in his tracks.

“...You don’t sound like lyrium,” Sehun said, shocked. He hadn’t realized it until they had fallen silent, but - the low-level hum of lyrium that he had _always_ associated with Cullen was gone.

Cullen flushed a little, and smiled, scrubbing a hand sheepishly through his hair. “Yes, I know. I stopped taking it.”

Sehun stared at him. “What?”

“When I joined the Inquisition. It’s been months now, closing in on a year.” He exhaled heavily, eyebrows raising. “It… hasn’t been easy, I won’t lie to you. Some days are very difficult. And we have a number of ex-Templars here who do still take lyrium, so - I hear it everywhere.” His hand dropped. “But it’s worth it. The soldiers look up to me, and seeing me getting off of it has inspired several of them to do the same. We’re developing a clinic for it, a rehabilitation program. Still in the early stages, but… It’s giving a lot of people hope.”

Sehun could imagine. He’d personally never even considered the notion of quitting; he’d assumed he was going to be stuck with the lyrium addiction for the rest of his life. The idea of being completely free of it, free of the last thing tying him to the Order he’d left behind...

Clearly, Cullen could see that argument on his face. “Well, don’t worry about that now. As long as you’re staying here, you’ll have access to our stores. I’ll let the quartermaster know.” He started walking again. “We’ve gotten a few reports about the situation in Starkhaven. You three have been _very_ busy for the last few years.”

Tao picked up that thread, and they talked for a bit about what they’d been working towards in Starkhaven and why they decided to leave, while Cullen led them over the battlements and through archways and up another flight of stairs to a building set high up on one of the walls. “Here,” he said as he opened a door. “We’ve set this aside for you.”

It wasn’t a very large room, but it’s got two beds that are both big enough for three if they don’t mind kicking each other on occasion, a table with three chairs, a massive wardrobe, and some other heavy furniture, older but well-kept. The bed linens were a little faded, but warm and soft-looking, and the large rug on the floor looked surprisingly plush, and their luggage was already stacked in the corner, waiting for them.

“There’s a giant hole in the roof,” Tao pointed out helpfully.

“Well, yes, I know, I thought - ” Clearing his throat, Cullen tried again. “There’s a hole in the roof of my room, too. I’ve grown to like it, so I thought maybe you would as well. The stars are incredible out here.”

The hole was directly above one of the beds. “It’s certainly…” Romantic. “Interesting. What if it rains?”

“Oh! It doesn’t rain in Skyhold.”

As one, all three of them turned to look at him.

“Don’t - don’t look at me like that,” Cullen said, laughing. “It doesn’t. It never rains or snows, and the temperature doesn’t change much either. Something about the way the foundations were bespelled, I’m not sure. This fortress is older than most of Thedas, we’re still learning about it.” He turned to the left, and pointed. “Mage tower is that one there, if you’re interested in asking about it. A few of the Gallows mages have joined us here, you might see someone you know.” He turned the other way. “Courtyard down there is our makeshift Chantry, and the training yards are just outside. Quartermaster’s is there, blacksmith is there. Breakfast and supper are served in the main hall there, or you can swing past the kitchens and con the cooks into letting you take something whenever.”

Overwhelmed, all three of them continued to stare at him. Cullen chuckled.

“Get settled in, boys. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” He smiled, and squeezed Sehun’s shoulder. “Welcome to the Inquisition.”

 

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End file.
